British Airways has apologised after passengers were wrongly told their flights were cancelled following the news its pilots will strike for three days next month.
Weddings, honeymoons and holidays of a lifetime have been thrown into doubt by the walkouts, which will see a raft of flights cancelled on September 9, 10 and 27.
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The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) announced the strikes after 93 per cent of its members rejected an 11.5 per cent pay rise across three years.
But it has now emerged that some passengers – the exact number has not yet been confirmed – were wrongly told their flight would be cancelled and they were advised to rebook.
A spokesman for airline said: “We are getting in touch with all those customers this afternoon to clarify that their flight will go ahead as planned.
“We are sorry for any confusion and inconvenience this has caused.”
He said anyone who went on to spend money on alternative arrangements should contact British Airways “and we will deal with each case on an individual basis”.
The spokesman clarified that some flights on non-strike days will be affected, but that the bulk of those cancelled are on the three strike days.
Swathes of passengers on flights which will be grounded tried in vain to contact the airline to make alternative arrangements on Saturday.
WEDDINGS CANCELLED
BA’s customer service lines were jammed on Saturday morning after passengers booked on flights received the overnight emails.
Scott Kishere, a filmmaker and police community officer from Dorset, said his 10 year wedding anniversary “trip of a lifetime” to the US and Canada has been cancelled.
“I have made over 100 attempts to contact them for a refund and they’re not answering. Until we get a refund we do not have the money to re-book our trip of a lifetime.
“With the days counting down it now looks unlikely we will be able to celebrate our 10-year anniversary as expected.”
“We have worked so hard for these trips and BA do not have the decency or customer care to support us.
“For them this has been on the cards for a long time and I cannot believe they didn’t have a contingency in place.”
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Jennifer Bond, from Manchester, said she was due to fly to Las Vegas with her fiancé Simon to get married but said their flights to and from the US had been cancelled – September 11 and 25.
She said: “Nearly two years of saving up and budgeting relentlessly and this happens three weeks before we fly.”
Jennifer added it had been “impossible” to get through to BA on the phone and so they had booked flights with Virgin costing them £700.
BA chief executive Alex Cruz said the pilots had been offered an “incredible, inflation-busting deal” which would take a captain’s pay to over £200,000 a year. He added that he felt the pilots had been “very badly served” by their union.
The pilots’ union, Bapla, said BA pilots had made sacrifices such as a taking pay cut, hits to pensions and changes to conditions to help the airline.
“In what is British Airways’ centenary year, this will be the very first time its pilots will go on strike,” said the airline.
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