British Airways will be restructuring its cabin crew from November 16 despite a strike ballot.
The Unite union announced a ballot of 14,000 BA cabin staff on Monday in a dispute that threatens industrial action over Christmas.
However, BA chief executive Willie Walsh said there would be no retreat from the mid-November deadline.
Speaking in Las Vegas following BA’s inaugural flight to the city, Walsh said: “I’m disappointed, but the changes will go ahead regardless of the announcement by Unite.”
BA announced a cut of 1,700 jobs and a two-year pay freeze for cabin crew early in October. However, the major sticking points are over changes to inflight operations and to the contracts and pay of future recruits.
Announcing the ballot, Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson said: “BA management’s determination to impose unacceptable contractual changes on cabin crew leaves us no alternative.”
The ballot will take four weeks and the union is required to give a further seven days notice of any strike, meaning industrial action is unlikely until December – carrying the threat of disruption into the holiday period.
Walsh said: “We have no contingency plans in place.” But he added: “We have options available to us.”
The BA boss said: “We have brilliant cabin crew, but we cannot ignore the realities. We lost money last year and are losing money this year. We have been in negotiations for more than nine months and made little progress. Unite has failed to grasp the need for BA to make significant changes.”
He argued: “We are not asking for a cut in pay. The changes will not impact on earnings and there will be no impact on individual terms and conditions. We are reducing the number of cabin crew on board without changing the service – and in future we will recruit people on different contracts.”
Walsh added: “I do not expect to need to make compulsory redundancies.” But he insisted: “The changes are coming in mid-November