Passengers who were stranded at Heathrow airport during last month's strike by British Airways staff are to receive £80 vouchers from the airline. The move was branded as "derisory" by a consumers' watchdog.
BA said the payouts were a "goodwill gesture" intended to repair some of the damage done to the 90,000 customers who were delayed for up to 48 hours when check-in staff staged an unofficial walkout.
The Air Transport Users' Council said it was unimpressed. The group said a sliding scale should have been employed so "people delayed, for three days, get a considerable amount more than those delayed for only three hours".
The vouchers are available to anybody who held a ticket for travel between July 18 and 21 inclusive. It is in addition to refunds for many passengers who chose not to fly and expenses to cover the cost of food and hotel accommodation.
A BA spokesman said £80 was enough for a one-way flight to many cities in Europe. Under its new fare structure aimed at competing with budget carriers, many of BA's fares start from £79.
Martin George, BA's director of marketing, said: "We hope that these vouchers will go some way to making up for the problems that people encountered."
BA faces a lingering threat of further disruption. The airline has still to agree pay deals with cabin crew and engineering staff. Unions say the discussions are likely to be critical, with reports of low morale among employees following a programme of 11,000 redundancies.
Representatives from the T&G, GMB and Amicus met BA to discuss a settlement for their engineering members yesterday. The talks were adjourned until today with the three unions reporting "progress".
Last week, BA reported a first-quarter loss of £45m.
