British Airways and the Unite cabin crew will resume talks on Friday at the conciliation service ACAS. It is hoped the union will succeed in reaching a final agreement with the airline.
Unite general secretary Tony Woodley stated that he believed he “should be able to conclude a new proposal, with significant changes” by the middle of next week.
Reports this week suggested that a new cabin crew ballot for further strike action over Christmas and new year was called off as a new deal came to the table.
Airline ready to take over Shannon-Paris route
Shannon local media reports that at least one airline has emerged as a potential replacement to take over the Shannon to Paris route abandoned by Ryanair. The front runner is Dublin based Air Contractors, a cargo airline which began passenger flights earlier this year when the company began operating a Boeing 737-300 passenger aircraft on a franchise basis with its sister company Europe Airpost (EAP).
A spokesman for Shannon Airport told reporters that it had has “positive talks with carriers in relation to establishing a new Paris service. While the market is challenging, we are quite confident of success, not least given that we had two successful services to Paris in 2009, Charles de Gaulle and Beauvais, and that Ryanair had an 89% load factor as recently as August," he said.
"We have had positive discussions with Air Contractors, who are in a position to provide aircraft to commercial passenger airlines, and they are keen to see new services established out of Shannon and we are working with them to that end.”