24.02.10
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has urged BA to take on its cabin crew union, but claimed the airline’s board lacks the ‘balls’ to do it. He obviously has an axe to grind on the matter, as his airline would benefit from a sustained strike and from a weaker BA, but the comments come as a passenger survey suggests that only 1 in 5 travellers back the strikers, with many calling BA's cabin crew 'overpaid and underworked.'
Reacting to the strike ballot by BA’s 12,000 cabin crew, Mr O’Leary said: ‘The unions need to be taken on. BA is massively over-staffed and has got to get its costs down.’ However, he said that he doubts BA’s board had the courage for a battle with Unite, the cabin crew union. He said: ‘I think they’ll wimp out at the eleventh hour. The problem for [chief executive] Willie Walsh is that the board has no spine, no balls and no vision.’
‘I have some sympathy with Willie. Fundamentally his heart is in the right place but the board is useless. It’s a very political board. Are they going to allow a strike 3 months before a General Election? Of course not.’
Mr O’Leary also does not have any time for the union’s tactics. He said: ‘They made a balls of it before Christmas. Unite – if they had any brains, which they don’t – should just have a one-day strike every two weeks. That’s enough to disrupt BA. That would cripple it.’
The travelling public is also firmly behind BA in its dispute, according to new research from Cheapflights. A total of 1087 passengers were surveyed by the website, with only 1 in 5 backing the strike and exactly 75% of respondents saying that they have no sympathy whatsoever for cabin crew, describing them as ‘overpaid and underworked’.
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