British Airways Strikes, GDC and SXSW

Here’s how to avoid industrial action impacting on your plans to get from the UK to either GDC in San Francisco on March 8th, or SXSW in Austin starting on March 11th.

Don’t fly British Airways.

Now that might be a bit unfair, but unless you were paying attention when you booked your tickets to fly out and avoided Willie Walsh’s struggling airline there’s a good chance you’ll be flying with British Airways this March to attend the big US conferences. If that’s the case, you’re going to be in for a nervous week.

With the strike vote announced yesterday, there’s another meeting on Thursday which is likely to announce the date and length of any strike action,. Thanks to government legislation from the 80s, the union, Unite/Bassa, have to provide seven days notice to BA of a strike, and start the strike within 21 days of the vote.

So the earliest day for strike action is Thursday 4th March, and it’s likely to be over a week long, maybe even ten days, ie through to the 14th. That’s going to hit a lot of travel plans for the digerati in the UK.

What can you do?

Well, nothing, until that letter is sent to British Airways. You could book alternative travel, but it’s not guaranteed you’ll get a refund. Nor are British Airways going to do any rebooking or shuffling flights and dates around without you incurring the standard admin and change fees until the strike dates are announce d- and even then you might still be forced to wait until the morning of the flight before you get a cancellation confirmation.

is it any wonder that interest in BA flights has dropped 42% this month? Unfortunately there’s not much you can do now except remember the golden rule of avoiding the UK Flag Carrier at Christmas and Easter.

As for me, well I’m booked, as always, on American Airlines for my transatlantic travel. Which doesn’t give me complete coverage because they have a code share with BA to fly me from Edinburgh to Heathrow. Luckily AA are pretty switched on, and have confirmed to me that if there is a strike, they’re happy for me to make my own way to London and pick up my itinerary from there.

Looks like a bus to America is the answer