British Airways calls for 100 pilots to volunteer for redundancy

British Airways is to make more than 100 pilots redundant, with pay-offs of up to £150,000 each, because of the decline in passenger numbers.

About 130 pilots have volunteered to take redundancy, with one year’s salary as severance pay. The move is expected to save the firm £20m in salary, pension and National Insurance costs.

A company spokesman confirmed that the airline had written to 500 of the 3,200 pilots employed,but said he did not expect the total number of cuts to exceed 100.

“We don’t expect there to be more than 100 approved for voluntary redundancy, but each pilot will get a personal quote, depending on their salary, for severance pay,” he said.

Balpa, the pilot’s union, supported the move, so long as no compulsory redundancies were made, a spokesman told Personnel Today.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Phone

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

“We’ve been in talks with British Airways for some time now which have been constructive and cordial, and these talks will continue,” he said. “Our chief aim is to ensure that there are no compulsory redundancies.”

The number of business and first class passengers flying with BA fell by 13% in March. The airline is expected to announce an operating loss of more than £150m later this month.