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A passenger is seen photographing a British Airways aircraft with his mobile telephone at Heathrow Airport near London - Source: Reuters -
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British Airways Plc has won a court ruling to prevent a 12-day cabin crew strike that threatened to strand hundreds of thousands of passengers over Christmas.
BA cabin crew had said they would walk out from December 22, escalating a dispute over job losses and changes to working practices. About 13,000 BA staff were balloted by the Unite union, 92.5% of whom backed the strike.
However, the High Court in London upheld BA's complaint that Unite had breached industrial relations law by balloting around 1,000 staff who had left the company or were in the process of leaving.
BA welcomed the ruling, but the Unite union called it a "disgraceful day for democracy".
Judge Laura Cox said the timing of the strike would have been particularly painful for passengers and company alike.
"A strike of this kind over the 12 days of Christmas is fundamentally more damaging to BA and the wider public than a strike taking place at almost any other time of the year."
Her ruling is a relief for passengers who were facing disappointment over ruined Christmas and New Year holidays.
"We are delighted for our customers that the threat of a Christmas strike has been lifted by the court," BA said in a statement. "It is a decision that will be welcomed by hundreds of thousands of families in the UK and around the world."
Union fury
BA said it believed that the union now had a better understanding
of its position but warned that "old style union militancy" would
not help to move it back to profitability.
Analysts estimated that the strike would have cost the airline around 30 million pounds a day, with around 1 million passengers affected and 7,000 flights grounded.
BA shares, which have slumped 10% in the past month, were down 3.5 pence at 193.5 pence by 1625 GMT, valuing the airline at 2.3 billion pounds ($NZ5.22 billion).
The Unite union, the ruling Labour party's biggest financial backer, said it expected to hold another ballot.
"It is a disgraceful day for democracy when a court can overrule such an overwhelming decision by employees taken in a secret ballot," Unite joint general secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley said in a statement.
"Given the clear mood of cabin crew about management's imposition of changes on their working lives, this means that the spectre of further disruption to the company's operations cannot be removed," they added.
BA wants three quarters of its crew to accept pay rises of 2-7% this year and a pay freeze in 2010, and for 3,000 staff to switch to part-time working, along with a reduction in onboard crewing levels from 15 to 14 on long-haul flights from London's Heathrow airport.
The average pay for BA cabin crew is 29,900 pounds, compared with an average of 20,200 pounds at easyJet and 14,400 pounds at Virgin Atlantic Airlines, according to the UK's Civil Aviation Authority.
Thousands of passengers were facing disruption after Scottish airline Flyglobespan fell into administration on Wednesday, leaving passengers stranded.
British train drivers on Eurostar services will strike on Friday and Saturday in a dispute over meal allowances, but the company said it did not expect problems for travellers because Belgian and French drivers can step in.
