Union Says BA Ballot Goes Ahead - and Cabin Crew Do Not Accept New Contracts Willingly

November 2nd, 2009 BASILDON, England - AA Travel Insurance is today advising travellers to ensure they take out proper travel cover when booking flights abroad this Christmas. In the wake of recent airline collapses from the likes of XL Airways, Zoom and Silverjet, British Airways are the latest casualties of the recession currently crippling the airline industry, with news that BA flights may be disrupted in the lead-up to Christmas.

October 29th, 2009 LONDON - - Attn: Scottish and Business Press Unite members at three leading Diageo sites in Scotland have today (Friday) voted overwhelmingly to back a ballot on industrial action. The results of a consultative ballot conducted by Unite the union, show that the workers at the Kilmarnock, Shieldhall and Port Dundas plants have given a resounding thumbs up to a full strike ballot.

October 1st, 2009 LONDON - Two and a half thousand bus workers at FirstGroup are set to take strike action in some of the country's biggest transport regions in mounting disputes over an imposed zero per cent pay deal. The strikes are set to go ahead as FirstGroup's national management refuses to allow the local managements of its 19 subsidiaries to fund a pay rise for its employees.

August 29th, 2009 LONDON - Members of Unite, the UK's largest union, working for Fujitsu have voted overwhelmingly for industrial action as part of a UK-wide consultative ballot against a proposal to close the company's main final salary pension scheme and the imposition of a pay freeze. 87 per cent of members voted in favour of strike action and 96 per cent in favour of industrial action short of a strike.

August 16th, 2009 LONDON - LONDON, August 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Unite, the UK's largest union, is warning IBM to brace itself for a backlash from thousands of employees against the company's plans to close the final salary pension schemes to future accrual and to alter the terms of its early retirement scheme. Whilst Unite is in the midst of an industrial action consultative ballot at Fujitsu, the fight back at IBM has been gathering pace as hundreds of angry workers have been joining the union.

August 5th, 2009 LONDON - Date: Thursday, 6th August 2009 Time: 9.30am - 11.30am Location: The Brewery, Chiswell Street, London, EC1Y 4SD Workers from Barclays are today (Thursday) protesting outside the Barclays shareholder meeting as part of their dispute regarding pensions. Unite members will carry placards stating: "Hands off our pensions" to highlight their anger at proposals by Barclays to close their final salary pension scheme.

April 13th, 2009 MIAMI and ATHENS - AIMS Corp has announced the introduction of its "state-of-the-art", technologically advanced Airline Crew Management, Operations Control & Commercial Planning Systems with three more Airline clients in the USA, Brazil and the Middle East. In the Middle East, Maximus Air Cargo joins the ever-expanding AIMS client base in the Middle East region, which includes Etihad, Gulf Air, Kuwait National Airways, MEA Middle East Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Jet, Royal Jordanian, and Yemenia.

March 31st, 2009 HAMBURG, Germany - The competition at this year's Crystal Cabin Award for aircraft cabin interiors innovations had strong entries in six different categories from 51 renowned companies. Winners are: Boeing, Lufthansa-Technik, B/E Aerospace and Recaro This truly unique prize was initiated two years ago by the "Joint-Initiative Hamburg - The place for aviation".

March 18th, 2009 LIVERPOOL, England - When: 10.00 am, Saturday 21st March 2009 - Where: Myrtle Parade/Bedford Street, Liverpool (see below) Hundreds of unemployed construction workers from across the North West will rally in Liverpool city centre on Saturday 21st March calling for fair access to jobs on UK engineering and construction projects. Unite is leading the fight to stop the growing problem of UK workers being refused work from important engineering and construction projects in the UK.

March 10th, 2009 LONDON - Unite, the UK's biggest civil air transport union, is balloting its members working at Manchester Airport for industrial action in a dispute over restructuring which has resulted in job cuts, pay cuts and the introduction of an unpopular shift pattern. Over 100 Swissport ground handling staff at the airport, including baggage handlers and ramp operatives, will receive ballot papers this weekend.

November 2nd, 2009 British Airways Christmas strike threat loomsLONDON — The Unite union said Monday it will announce the results of a planned ballot of British Airways PLC cabin crew for strike action in mid-December, raising the prospect of a walkout over the busy Christmas period. The decision to begin voting next week followed a mass meeting of more than 3,000 cabin crew at a racecourse near London to discuss a response to BA's cost-cutting plans.

May 1st, 2009 HONG KONG - Cathay Pacific cabin crew are demanding that they be allowed to wear face masks and gloves on flights to protect themselves against swine flu, but Hong Kong's biggest airline has refused. The 5,000-member Cathay Pacific Flight Attendants Union (FAU) said that cabin crew were increasingly fearful after the WHO raised its pandemic alert to level five, the second highest.

January 12th, 2009 HONG KONG - Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific was Tuesday facing a potential 13 million US dollar payout to its cabin crew after losing a court case over unpaid holiday pay. Three flight attendants won a test case at a Labour Tribunal hearing which said they were entitled to a total of 14,000 US dollars in additional holiday pay from 2002 to 2008.

May 13th, 2009 MELBOURNE - The cabin crew for Air New Zealand dropped their clothes for a racy new advertisement that shows them performing their duties sporting only body paint. Eight staff members donned the art while more than 90 others formed a part in the campaign, that was created to promote the airline's fares that "have nothing to hide".

October 5th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Air India Monday said the cockpit of its Sharjah-Lucknow-Delhi flight IC-884 was not left unmanned during a mid-air scuffle that broke out between the pilots and cabin crew Saturday. "The committee constituted by the Air India management to inquire into the incident has concluded decisively that the cockpit was not left unmanned at any point of time during the flight phase," the airline said in a statement.

June 3rd, 2009 Captain of Air France Flight 447 was son of pilotPARIS — Marc Dubois grew up to be a pilot, just like his dad. The younger Dubois was last heard from Sunday night, when the Air France Flight 447 he was captaining encountered fierce thunderstorms over the mid-Atlantic and plunged into the ocean with 228 people on board.

July 1st, 2009 MELBOURNE - Air New Zealand has come up with a novel way to get their passengers to pay attention to safety instructions - by having their flight attendants read them out wearing only body paint. In the video, the body-painted crew cheerfully give the safety instructions, including where to stow baggage and how to use oxygen masks, reports News.com.au.

December 30th, 2008 WASHINGTON - The astronauts, including India-born Kalpana Chawla, who died in the 2003 disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia as it returned to Earth had just seconds to respond before becoming incapacitated, an in-depth report on the tragedy has said. The 400-page report released Tuesday by NASA was aimed at gleaning lessons for crew survival from the tragedy that killed Columbia's seven-member crew.

June 5th, 2009 LONDON - A Brit airline stewardess, known as the 'world's hottest cabin crewmember', has stripped off for a magazine photoshoot. Sam Kellett, 21, from Chesterfield, stripped for a sexy 18-page photoshoot for Front magazine.

June 30th, 2009 Smoke in cabin causes emergency landing in Fla.DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A commercial airliner with 128 passengers and crew has made an emergency landing in Florida because smoke was detected in the cabin.