Pilots union boss jets off on holiday amid BA strike chaos
The general secretary of pilots’ union BALPA has been snapped checking in for a family summer holiday the day after announcing strike dates at British Airways.
The Sun newspaper accused Brian Strutton of hypocrisy for ‘sneaking away on a luxury break’ while ‘wrecking’ the holiday plans of other families.
BALPA announced late on Friday afternoon that BA pilots will strike on September 9, 10 and 27.
Strutton arrived at Bournemouth airport with his family to check-in for a TUI flight on Saturday morning, the Sun says.
Despite BA saying it will ‘do everything we can to get as many people as possible away on their journeys’, the airline has already cancelled many flights over the strike dates.
Other passengers wrongly received emails saying their flights on days around the strike dates had been cancelled, to be told later the emails had been sent in error. Many had already booked alternative flights.
Aviation experts have warned of another four days of cancellations and delays with aircraft and cabin crew being in the wrong place.
The Sun quotes a senior aviation source saying: "He’s a hypocrite.
"If he was serious about averting strikes, he’d be sitting around the negotiating table rather than swanning off on holiday."
Strutton, who the newspaper says is on £141,000 a year, reportedly ‘squirmed with embarrassment’ when a journalist asked him why he should be entitled to enjoy a holiday when tens of thousands of Brits have been affected by the BA strike.
He replied: "Hmm, well we are trying not to affect other people’s holidays, of course."
The Sun said the family flew to Majorca for a seven-day cruise.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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