BA announces plans to recruit 1,250 crew staff on lower pay

Published on Thursday 24 June 2010 22:09

BRITISH Airways plans to recruit more than 1,000 cabin crew on lower wages than many of existing staff to cut costs as it faces the prospect of further strike action in August.

The airline said that it will hire 1,250 crew members this year and forecast that in ten years' time staff recruited on the new terms would form 40 per cent of the overall cabin crew.

BA said that it was making the move in light of the losses it has made over the past two years.

According to the company, existing cabin crew members working on short-haul flights from Heathrow earn an annual salary of 25,700, while crew working on long-haul flights out of Heathrow earn an average 35,000.

Those crew members working on short-haul routes out of Gatwick earn 18,300.

A BA spokesman said the recruits would work on a mixed-fleet basis, servicing both short-haul and long-haul flights and would earn a salary "similar to current Gatwick crew".

The Unite union said the salary rates quoted by BA were "grossly inflated", claiming that average allowances for short-haul routes were 4,000 and 8,000 for long-haul.

The union claimed that seven out of ten cabin crew earned less than 20,000.

&#149 Meanwhile, the Icelandic volcanic ash crisis and BA strike action will cost airports operator BAA more than 40 million this year due to lost revenues at Heathrow and Stansted.

However, BAA said the loss would be mitigated by higher overall passenger numbers.