British Airways has reduced its flight schedule due to planned strikes by London Heathrow airport employees during the Easter holiday weekend, the airline said on Monday, with the worker dispute over pay set to strain the country's busiest airport. Labour unrest due to discontent over stagnant pay rises when the price of goods is surging has had a severe impact on Britain's transport system, much like most other crucial sectors like healthcare and education. "Following Heathrow's requirement for us to reduce the number of passengers travelling during the period of its employees' proposed strike action, we've regrettably had to make a small number of adjustments to our schedule," British Airways, owned by IAG, said in a statement. "We've apologised to customers whose travel plans have been affected and have offered them a range of options." The statement followed a BBC report that said the airline was looking to cancel 32 flights a day to and from Heathrow from March 31, the start of the Easter holidays when more than 1,400 Heathrow security guards are planning to start a 10-day strike. "We will not let these unnecessary strikes impact the hard-earned holidays of our passengers. Our contingency plans will keep the airport operating as normal throughout," a Heathrow spokesperson said. Unite, a union representing the workers who are responsible for checking cargo that enters the airport, set out the strike plan earlier in March, warning flights using Heathrow will experience severe delays and disruption over Easter. Heathrow said it was deploying 1,000 more employees to mitigate disruption but said it might "take a little longer than usual to get through security" as is the case at any busy time.<br/>
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Qantas’ domestic cabin crew have agreed a new deal of working terms in a move that will avoid threatened strike action. More than 1,500 FAAA members voted in favour of the agreement that will only increase work hours from 9.45 to 10 hours – rather than the 12 hours sought by the Flying Kangaroo. Rest periods will also be maintained. The union in November voted almost unanimously in favour of industrial action over the Christmas holiday period, but no stoppages eventually took place. “This just goes to show what can happen when the company sits down with a real offer and works to get an outcome that people can agree to,” FAAA national secretary Teri O’Toole told The Australian. The deal follows a series of disputes with third-party staff ending in settlements in recent months. Last year, Dnata catering staff and Menzies ground handlers called off a vote on industrial action after securing pay raises and job security protections in September. Dnata ground handlers also called off a planned 24-hour strike after securing an immediate 12.6% pay rise. Finally, Airport firefighters cancelled strike action planned for the Christmas holiday period after agreeing to a 4.9% pay rise.<br/>
Qantas will, from today, operate an extra 57 return services per week between the Golden Triangle of Sydney–Melbourne–Brisbane in a move that should reduce airfares across the industry. It follows Sydney Airport’s CEO claiming this month that the domestic aviation recovery had been “stagnant” since April last year, with numbers still 17 per cent down compared to pre-pandemic. Geoff Culbert appeared to blame airlines for offering fewer seats for sale to consumers alongside higher prices. However, today’s increase by Qantas will see its capacity, or seats for sale, on the services rise by 11 points to 93 per cent of pre-COVID levels. The Flying Kangaroo is also adding seats on transcontinental services to and from Perth using the airline’s larger Airbus A330 fleet, while sister carrier Jetstar is boosting its domestic and international flying capacity next six months by 15 percentage points. Nationwide, the domestic aviation industry peaked at 97% pre-pandemic passenger numbers in June last year, but it came alongside all-time records for delays being broken that month and in April and July. Since then, the industry has cut flights to improve the passenger experience. Recent figures, though, appear to show capacity is failing to return to the market as quickly as hoped, which is in itself leading to higher airfares and fewer people flying.<br/>