New British Airways strike ballot after court ruling

BA argues it is entitled unilaterally to reduce cabin crew complements on board its Worldwide and Eurofleet flights as these are not terms of individual cabin crew members' contracts.

But the Unite union said it was in breach of contract by imposing the changes as the existing crew complements were fixed by collective agreements with the unions and were "expressly incorporated" into individual contracts.

Giving his ruling in London, judge Sir Christopher Holland said they were not incorporated and so the claim failed at the outset.

BA said in a statement: "We are extremely pleased with today's High Court ruling that the modest changes we made to onboard crew numbers on flights from Heathrow were reasonable, did not breach crew contracts and can remain in place.

"Unite's central demand over the last three months has been that we reverse these changes, despite the severe financial impact this would have on the company at a time when we are facing a second year of record annual losses.

Unite had agreed "unwillingly" to work the new schedules pending today's decision on 10 test cases - representative of about 5,400 claimants who are among 13,400 cabin crew employed by BA.

It is re-balloting its 12,000 cabin crew members at BA for industrial action, with a result due on Monday.