BA seeks further talks to avert future strike

London : British Airways wants to restart talks with unions to head off the prospect of strike action in 2010, which will likely hit bookings in the new year, after winning a court ruling to prevent a Christmas walkout.

"We are open to holding more talks with Unite but cannot pre-empt any decisions they make on reballoting," a BA spokeswoman said yesterday.

The Unite union said it would re-ballot its members after BA won a court ruling on Thursday to prevent a cabin crew strike that threatened to strand around a million passengers over Christmas.

However, a strike is unlikely to be held until January 2010 at the earliest given the logistical difficulty and the time it will take to organise a postal vote of workers all over the world.

"The ongoing threat of a strike could further damage bookings in the new year. However we think that the duration of the strike might be scaled back from 12 days which, by the union's own admission, was excessive," said Deutsche Bank analyst Geoff Van Klaveren.

Potential loss

"We estimate that BA stood to lose £310 million (Dh1.85 billion) in revenues and £163 million in profits from a 12-day strike. The financial damage will now be much less but still material, in our view."

The High Court in London upheld BA's complaint that Unite had breached industrial-relations law by balloting around 1,000 staff who had left the company or were in the process of leaving. BA crew had said they would walk out from December 22.