News & offers: BA pilots strike update, BA A350 Club Suites video, business class from £1156 & hotels.com offer

BA pilots strike update

The majority of BA pilots are represented by the pilots union BALPA. Recently a ballot was held where 93% of BA pilots voted in favour of industrial action with a 90% turnout. The dispute is over pay.

Yesterday BA lost its appeal at the High Court to take out an injunction to stop the strike. BALPA released the following statement.

The Court of Appeal has today rightly dismissed BA’s attempt to injunct this industrial action on a technicality.

“BA’s attempt to defeat the democratic view of their pilots in court, rather than deal with us across the negotiating table, has sadly wasted huge amounts of time and money that could have been put into finding a peaceful resolution. Now the window for negotiation and compromise is closing fast.”

“BA need to wake up to reality. Our ballot returned 93% in favour of strike action. There is a serious issue here and BA has so far refused to help us tackle it.

“On BA’s own figures submitted to the court, even a single day of strike action will cost far more than we believe it would take to settle this dispute.

“However, BALPA wants to resolve this matter through negotiation and so we are not announcing strike dates. Instead, we have called on BA to hold further talks at ACAS and they have agreed to meet at ACAS today and for the rest of this week for one last try to resolve this dispute by negotiation.

“We have spent four days in talks at ACAS already, and BA refused to move their position one iota. But we hope they now recognise the seriousness of the situation and will work positively with us to find a way forward.

“We are not announcing strike dates today. In any event we are required by law to provide BA with 14 days’ notice of any proposed strike action.”

So far no strike dates have been announced. BALPA must give two weeks notice of any strike meaning that any strike date would not be before 15 August 2019 at the earliest.

There is a dedicated page on ba.com with the latest strike news which you can find here.

You can keep up to date with all the latest strike action with this article which is updated as it happens.

British Airways A350-1000 video

If you enjoyed our article on the BA Club Suites, you may enjoy this video from British Airways with more of a look around the aircraft and some shots from the event we attended. You may also spot a familiar face or two…. How many people can you recognise in the video?

Winter sun in business class from £1156 (including BA A350)

Sometimes I focus on a particular departure point or destination but today, it’s all about winter sun in the Middle East! If you like lots to do, fancy restaurants and shopping, then Dubai is the place for you. It is a bustling city but with beach resorts too. If you prefer peace and quiet then Muscat would be a better choice. If you would like something in the middle, I would go for Abu Dhabi which has very reasonable hotel rates compared to Dubai. You can often get a 5* hotel for around £120 a night there. You can read our Abu Dhabi and Dubai hotel reviews here. 

• Amsterdam to Muscat, Oman £1156
• Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi £1320
• Amsterdam to Dubai £1480

The flights are on British Airways and, of course, BA will be using their new A350 to Dubai from 2 September 2019!  The flights are BA0107  departing Heathrow at 1250 and arriving into Dubai at 2305, and returning as BA0106, departing Dubai at 0130 and landing back into London at 0615. I can see the A350 available at the offer price. As a matter of interest, I had a look at how much it was to fly from London to Dubai and the cheapest price was £400 more. Even taking into account positioning flights and a hotel that would still represent a saving. For Muscat, it is a whopping £1000 difference!

The rules of the fare are:

• Book by: 30 August 2019
• Travel: before 10 December 2019
• Minimum stay: a Saturday night
• Maximum stay: 12 months
• Transfers: Unlimited
• Stopovers: No
• Refundable: No
• Changeable: For €300 + difference in fare

You can book direct with British Airways here or find the cheapest online travel agent price with Skyscanner.

Hotels.com 8% off

You can get an 8% discount off at hotels.com by entering the coupon code AFFGEN719UK. They do sometimes offer 10% off so if you are not in a hurry to book you may want to wait and see if that comes up.

As usual, there are some exclusions and rules:

• Booking Dates: 29th Jul- 11th Aug
• Stay Dates: 29th Jul- 11th Feb
• Most major chains are excluded
• You must pay for your stay when you make the booking.
• hotels.com rewards cannot be collected or redeemed using the code

You can search for prices and book using the code on hotels.com here.