British Airways pilots that are members of the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) have walked out for the second day in a 48-hour strike over pay.
It's the biggest walkout in the airline's history, with almost all flights cancelled from Heathrow and Gatwick. Flights from London City are unaffected.
British Airways has warned passengers not to show up at the airport if their flight is cancelled.
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It's the second day of a 48-hour walkout by British Airways pilots, with almost no BA flights departing London Heathrow and London Gatwick airports.
Flights from London City airport are unaffected.
The only departure on the British Airways schedule from Heathrow Terminal 5 today is an afternoon flight to Cairo – operated by Air Belgium.
From Gatwick, BA passengers will travel to New York JFK on a flight operated by Evelop Airlines, a Spanish charter carrier. An Air Baltic flight to and from Riga will operate under a British Airways number.
Three BA planes will operate on maintenance flights, to Cardiff, Bournemouth and Madrid.
An update from British Airways on its website this morning:
We understand the frustration and disruption BALPA’s strike action has caused you. After many months of trying to resolve the pay dispute, we are extremely sorry that it has come to this.Unfortunately, with no detail from BALPA on which pilots would strike, we had no way of predicting how many would come to work or which aircraft they are qualified to fly, so we had no option but to cancel nearly 100 per cent our flights.We remain ready and willing to return to talks with BALPA.Our customer teams – supported by additional colleagues – have been working tirelessly to help as many of you as possible and to provide options, including a full refund or re-booking to a different date of travel or alternative airline.We are offering all affected customers full refunds or the option to re-book to another date of travel or alternative airline.
Brian Strutton, general secretary of Balpa, tells The Independent:
Our dispute is a very serious one. It’s about pay and benefits, but underlying that is a real breakdown between British Airways and its pilots.We need to find a way of resolving both the dispute between us and and finding a way to rebuild that trust.
The 48-hour strike is due to end at midnight tonight.
Tonight, a wave of long-haul BA flights from locations including Dubai, Nairobi and New York are due to depart shortly before midnight, with a near-normal service expected on Wednesday and later in the week.
The only flights operating from Heathrow Terminal 5 today are Iberia-operated routes to Madrid.
All British Airways flights from London City airport are operating as normal so far this morning. Flights from City are unaffected by the pilot strike.
Today there are just three British Airways planes in the skies, according to Plane Finder:
A survey conducted by consumer intelligence platform Toluna suggests that while the British Airways strike will cause "brief annoyance and inconvenience", customers will forget about it fairly quickly.
The group found that more than half of respondents feel that BA has handled the strike as best as possible, and 88% said they would likely fly with the airline again.
A British Airways spokesperson says:
We are very sorry that the cynical action of the pilots' union has left our customers and colleagues in this position and remain ready and willing to return to talks with Balpa.
If you're looking for a silver lining in grounding of almost all BA flights...
A headline in satirical website News Thump reads: "British Airways wins environmental award for record reduction in flights"
Some stressed-out travellers are looking for reassurance from BA as to whether the further strike day planned for 27 September will go ahead.
One social media user tweeted: "Wish I could get excited for my holiday, but British Airways are stressing me out not knowing whether they will 100% be cancelling on 27th!"
Scottish Rugby has confirmed to The Independent that British Airways laid on two special flights to get the men’s team to the Rugby World Cup in Japan.
Using planes flown by “management pilots”, the squad travelled on the only BA domestic flight to operate on Monday.
BA1461 arrived 25 minutes early at a deserted Terminal 5. After two hours, the squad boarded flight 007 to Tokyo’s Haneda airport, where they arrived on schedule on Tuesday morning.
British Airways warned its pilots that their travel perks would be stripped if they participated in this week’s strikes.
In an email sent on Friday night, the airline said that benefits including a 90 per cent discount on flights for friends and family and a free set of business class tickets annually would be removed from pilots for three years. Any flights already booked under the scheme will be cancelled.
It also said that from 31 October, pilots will no longer receive discounted tickets to travel to work.
A BA spokesperson said: “We make no apology for doing everything we can to protect our customers from further disruption.”
Although no British Airways flights are taking off or landing for the next 12 hours, the airline's executive lounges in airports are evidently still operating.
BBC World News producer Richard Gordon tweeted a picture of an empty BA lounge in Singapore – with plenty of food to go round...
And in other news, a Qantas plane was forced to divert mid-flight after a fight broke out about a mobile phone.
According to another passenger, the altercation started when the younger man refused to turn his phone off while flight QF1421 was still taxiing on the runway.
The unnamed witness told news.com.au that they didn’t hear a fight break out, but that word quickly spread that the older man had “snatched the other guy’s phone and threw it”.
The flight attendant allegedly got involved, saying to the older man: “That’s not your job that’s my job.”
Following the brief altercation, the pilot spoke over the tannoy to inform travellers that the plane would be turning back to Sydney and that “any passenger altercation won’t be tolerated onboard.”
Read the full story here: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/qantas-flight-mobile-phone-fight-divert-sydney-diversion-a9098716.html
For the first time since the "ash cloud" shutdown in 2010, no BA flight is in the air anywhere in the world.
There was one inbound flight from Sydney and Singapore that arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 this morning.
Read Simon Calder's analysis on the strikes: "British Airways pilot strike bears uncanny resemblance to industrial disputes of the 1970s":
There are no British Airways flights anywhere in the world, as shown by Flight Radar:
Although the strikes will be over by midnight tonight, there could be disruption on Friday as self-styled "drone activists" plan to shut down Heathrow airport.
The Heathrow Pause group says the action is “to highlight the incompatibility of Heathrow airport’s expansion with the government’s own legally binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050”.
The group – a splinter of the Extinction Rebellion movement but separate from it – plans to fly what it calls “toy drones” within the exclusion zone specified by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
“Drones may be flown at just above head height in the restricted 5km zone surrounding Heathrow but not within flight paths,” the activists said.
