A supporter of the British Airways cabin crew strike, holds a mask depicting BA CEO Willie Walsh at a picket line at London's Heathrow airport, Sunday March 21. AP Image
British Airways cabin crews walked off the job for a second day on Sunday but the airline insisted the strike was having less impact than expected and said it was able to restore flights that had previously been cancelled.
The airline, locked in a bitter dispute with workers over a pay freeze and changing working conditions, was forced to cancel or delay hundreds of flights over the weekend as cabin crew launched a three-day strike after negotiations collapsed on Friday.
Many travellers en route to the United States who were supposed to have brief stopovers at Heathrow, the airline's London hub, ended up stranded at the airport and faced long waits to connect with flights home.
But British Airways (BA) said it was coping well with the strike due to its extensive contingency plans and the fact that many crew members ignored the strike call.
"Our contingency plans are continuing to work well on Sunday morning around the world", it said in a statement.
But many strikers gathered at Heathrow Airport to make a visible protest with one commenting, anonymously, that BA flight staff and cabin crew had been divided on the issue.
BA said almost all the cabin crews at Gatwick airport and about half of those at Heathrow reported for duty on Saturday, allowing the airline to reinstate more than a dozen previously cancelled flights - including those to Miami and Los Angeles, as well as some short-haul European destinations.
The airline said all long-haul aircraft from overseas airports arrived in London as planned on Sunday morning and said there was no evidence of strikes at any overseas airports.
In preparation for the strike, BA had retrained some staffers to serve as cabin crew and leased planes and crew from rival carriers to take up some of the shortfall.
Still, about 1,100 out of the airline's 1,950 flights scheduled to operate during the three-day walkout were expected to be cancelled.
Union leaders disagreed with BA's claims of success, however, saying nearly 10-thousand members did not go to work Saturday and as a result many passengers complained about in-flight food and services.
Unite, the union representing BA cabin crews, said scores of BA planes were grounded, clogging up parking space, and only one of the five regular flights to New York's JFK airport took off Saturday.
Unite was planning a second, four-day walkout due to begin March 27, and it had said more strikes will be scheduled after April 14 if the dispute is not resolved.
Union joint general secretary Tony Woodley said he was calling on the airline's board and chairman to intervene and resolve the dispute.
"Today, I will be appealing to British Airways at board level to take matters in hand and restart negotiations to reach an agreement which would allow the strike scheduled for next weekend to be averted", Woodley said in a letter to union members.