British Airways abandons plans for subsidiary airline at Gatwick.

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4 years ago

British Airways (BA) is abandoning plans for a short-haul, BA-branded subsidiary at Gatwick after pilots refused to back a deal between the airline and union.

BA suspended operations at the UK’s second-biggest airport at the start of the pandemic, and said it could only relaunch short-haul services if it could lower its cost base – including staff terms and conditions, The Guardian reported.

It intends to run only a skeleton schedule of domestic feeder flights at Gatwick from next year. The BA chief executive, Sean Doyle, has said he would consider selling the slots to rivals, although analysts believe it is more likely they will be deployed to other parts of the airline’s parent group, IAG.

The national carrier had initially won the backing of leaders of the pilots union Balpa to push ahead with proposals for a BA-branded subsidiary, with up to 17 planes based at the Sussex airport. However, Balpa dropped its recommendation and scrapped the ballot needed to ratify the deal after consulting more broadly with pilots.

A BA spokesperson said: “We’re disappointed that our plans for a new short-haul subsidiary at Gatwick have not received Balpa’s support. After many years of losing money on European flights from the airport, we were clear that coming out of the pandemic, we needed a plan to make Gatwick profitable and competitive.

“With regret, we will now suspend our short-haul operations at Gatwick, with the exception of a small number of domestic services connecting to our long-haul operation, and will pursue alternative uses for the London Gatwick short-haul slots.”

Balpa’s acting general secretary, Martin Chalk, said: “We are disappointed that we couldn’t come to arrangements that were acceptable to our members. We stand ready to work with BA to find such arrangements that could be acceptable.”