LITTLEJOHN

This is the captain speaking...

THE summer holidays are supposed to be the most relaxing time of the year, a couple of weeks’ respite from the daily grind. Instead, they’re often the most stressful. Hundreds of thousands of people booked on British Airways flights are worrying about whether they’ll get away. And if they do, whether they’ll make it back again.

unless there is a breakthrough in pay talks by tonight, the BA pilots’ union could call a strike in two weeks’ time. As many as 145,000 passengers a day could have their travel plans ruined.

The pilots can expect little sympathy. They’ve been offered an 11.5 per cent rise over three years, which has already been accepted by thousands of much more lowly paid staff, such as baggage handlers and flight attendants.

But they are holding out for a far bigger increase and a share of the airline’s profits and are prepared to hold holidaymakers to ransom if their demands aren’t met.

This is the kind of blackmail we have come to expect from militant train drivers, who always time their strike threats to coincide with busy travel periods such as Christmas and Easter.

For airline pilots to resort to similar tactics over the summer holidays is disgraceful. They are already among some of the best rewarded staff in any industry, with an enviable pay and perks package.

BA says the average captain’s salary is £167,000, with the most senior pilots receiving more than £200,000. The average salary of passengers travelling economy is £30,000. Most people have scrimped and saved all year to pay for a week or two in the sun. They shouldn’t have their holidays hijacked by fat cats in the cockpit.

Yes, pilots have a stressful, responsible job. But so do bus and coach drivers, and they can only dream of such sky-high wages.

It’s true, too, that starting salaries for newly qualified pilots can be as low as £26,000 and they are expected to repay training costs of anything up to £100,000. But after that, they can enjoy a well-remunerated career far in excess of what most people earn in their lifetimes.

So it is simply monstrous to inflict such misery and uncertainty on their fellow citizens trying to escape to the sun for a brief, relaxing break away from the pressures of work and home.

The run-up to the holiday period is already trying enough, without the annual ritual of strike threats from air traffic controllers, foreign and domestic, and the general disruption we have come to take for granted.

Your journey by road and rail to the airport can often be a nightmare, worrying if you’ll make your flight because of delays caused by the police yet again closing the motorway for hours on end, or a wildcat walkout by signalmen on the Gatwick Express line.

Then there’s always the latest threat that selfish climate change protesters will chain themselves to the runway, or fly drones to stop planes taking off or landing.

If you decide to park at the airport, you could be charged more for the privilege than the cost of your entire holiday. Should you entrust your car to one of those cowboy valet parking firms, there’s the possibility it’ll be dumped in a muddy field for a fortnight, stolen by joyriders, or used as a minicab while you’re away.

of course, there is nothing glamorous about air travel these days. British airports are designed to cause you as much aggravation

as possible, even before you get to security. Terminals have been turned into giant shopping malls with departure gates attached, miles into the middle distance.

There’s nothing worse, or quite as disorientating, than having to run the gauntlet at 7am of strobe lights, loud disco music and women who look as if they’ve been made-up by morticians spraying you with horrible perfume.

Not to mention getting robbed blind at the foreign exchange counter because the value of the pound has fallen through the floor.

So the last thing you need to fear is that the union representing pilots earning anything up to 200 grand a year will decide to call a strike on the day you are due to fly. And that’s before you even get to your destination, where it will take you all week to unwind, fretting about whether your return flight is going to be cancelled because of industrial action.

No wonder a report published yesterday claimed it takes most of us four days to recover from a twoweek summer break.

So let’s hope the pilots’ union backs down. Here’s something for their negotiators to consider.

In 1981, President ronald reagan grew sick of American air traffic controllers holding passengers to ransom. After one walkout too many, he gave them 48 hours to return to work.

Those who didn’t comply were sacked. Around 11,000 were fired and many never worked in the industry again.

British Airways employs around 4,000 pilots, but they needn’t think they are all indispensable.

If BA plucked up the courage to issue a reagan- style ultimatum, those who decided to carry on striking might find themselves out of a job permanently.

These are turbulent times in the airline business. This week, ryanair announced it had 500 pilots who were now surplus to requirements. They would be ready-made replacements for the strikers and would walk into any vacancies at BA overnight.

Passengers who have had their holidays ruined may well decide to desert BA for good, which would hit profits and threaten job losses, pilots included.

If they’ve any sense of selfpreservation, let alone common decency, they should take the deal on offer and allow the rest of us to enjoy our holidays.