British Airways threatens to fire pilots

British Airways is battling its pilot union that’s pushing back on further job cuts as the carrier initiates the legal process to block the U.K.’s 14-day self-isolation plan for arrivals starting Monday.

The airline warned its pilots union that it would dismiss all of the company’s 4,300 pilots and rehire them on individual contracts unless the union reached an agreement with the carrier. The company, which is negotiating a planned reduction of 1,130 roles represented by the Balpa union, sought another 125 pilot jobs on Wednesday, the union said in an email.

“This has seriously undermined our talks which now hang by a thread,” Brian Strutton, the general secretary of the union, said in an email. “It calls into question whether BA is even capable of conducting industrial relations properly and whether anything they say can be trusted.”

A spokesperson for the airline, which is working on cutting 12,000 jobs across the company, said in an email it’s “acting now to protect as many jobs possible,” adding that “the airline industry is facing the deepest structural change in its history, as well as facing a severely weakened global economy.”

Bloomberg  / Sydney Morning Herald