A pilots union on Friday called on members at British Airways to accept pay cuts and productivity concessions to save the troubled carrier 26 million pounds ($42.2 million) a year. In return, pilots would be offered shares of BA stock if the company achieves certain growth targets.
If pilots ratify the agreement, they would take a 2.61 percent cut in basic pay in October and accept a cut in allowances for the time spent in flight from the current 11 pounds per hour to 9 pounds per hour, the British Airline Pilots Association said.
An agreement to increase annual duty hours, have shorter turnaround times on short haul flights and reductions in crew arrangements on some long-haul routes is expected to generate 10 million pounds of the overall savings, the union said.
British Airways, which lost 375 million pounds in the year ending March 31, has asked its staff to consider volunteering blocks of unpaid working time. The airline's chief executive, Willy Walsh, is giving up his salary in July, some 61,250 pounds, and Chief Financial Officer Keith Williams would forgo his pay of 36,667 pounds for the month.
In return for the concessions, BALPA said pilots will be eligible to receive BA shares worth 13 million pounds in mid-2011 if certain company targets are achieved. The shares would have to be held for a minimum of three years.
The pilots will individually have to hold these for three years, to June 2014, when they will be free to sell them or hold them. If conditions improve sufficiently the value of the shares could increase in that three-year period. ``We have always said that as a union we would share the pain if our members shared in the gain,' said Jim McAuslan, the union's general secretary.