Hello, I'm Simon Corder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're dreaming of a great escape or perhaps feeling a little apprehensive.

And it would be perfectly understandable if you were.

The GMB and the Unite Union have jaded. understandable if you were.

The GMB and the Unite Union have just announced that hundreds of their members working four British Airways at London Heathrow and as customers facing staff, that would be the people who check you in,

the people who are waiting at the gate, smiling to check your boarding pass and welcome you on to the aircraft.

It's the above the wing team, which doesn't include cabin crew, and it doesn't include the baggage handlers, the

engineers, the people who organise the pushback, they are below the wing. So it's a very specific

group of people, and they are very specifically angry. Certainly what I've been hearing is that they are

just very cheesed off with the way they've been treated over the past couple of years.

Like an awful lot of people in aviation, they have taken a pay cut. 10% pay cut. Nobody disputes that. British Airways says, yep,

that's exactly what we have done. And therefore, we also want to give them a 10% bonus, which is

effectively saying to them, right, well, you can have a 10% bonus of your wages this year,

and that's not forming part of your salary.

It's really just a kind of general thank you for your excellent hard work in a very difficult time.

But the GMB union says, and I'm quoting here, the national officer Nadine Houghton,

with grim predictability, holidaymakers face massive disruption thanks to the peak-headedness

of British Airways, who, she says, have tried to offer our members crumbs from the table.

It doesn't, she says, cut the mustard.

And in particular, they are very concerned about what she calls untold abuse as they deal with the travel chaos caused by staff shortages and IT failures.

They say that unless you can reverse this pay cut, you are going to find that we are striking at some stage.

Now, when is that going to be?

You're very keen to know.

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