BA strike – live: Heathrow Terminal 5 looks like a 'ghost town' as 1,700 flights cancelled amid pilot walkout
The 48-hour strike is the biggest walkout in the airline’s history
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Your support makes all the difference.British Airways pilots are walking out for 48 hours in a row over pay.
It's the biggest walkout in the airline's history, with almost all flights cancelled.
British Airways has warned passengers not to show up at the airport if their flight is cancelled.
Follow below for live updates.
Thanks to far fewer planes in the sky, walkout has meant clearer skies over southwest London...
The strike has seen British Airways' reputation take a battering.
Analysis by reputation intelligence specialists Alva found that its corporate image had slipped to 55th out of 65 companies in its Airlines Reputation Index.
This is the first time that the carrier has fallen to the lowest quarter of the ranking - BA was in 31st place as recently as January 2016.
Alastair Pickering, chief strategy officer at Alva, said:
Delays, cancellations, data breaches and IT glitches all point to systems failures at the company, which are all too easily linked back in stakeholders’ minds to the company’s internal focus on cost-cutting and efficiencies.
But the situation is by no means terminal. Announcements like the planned £6.5bn investment programme aimed at revamping the passenger experience should help to address the growing customer cynicism.
Not everyone is upset about the strike.
"As British Airways are on strike today, Royal Jordanian it is! (Admittedly a better plane too, with the Dreamliner)," tweeted Jonathon Greenhow.
With most of British Airways' planes grounded today and tomorrow, they are being parked where they can – in this case at Gatwick airport.
The British Airline Pilots Association has said the strength of feeling among its members who are BA pilots should be a wake-up call for British Airways.
Balpa said it extended an olive branch offer last Wednesday that was rebuffed, and that there are currently no further negotiations planned.
The strike will continue as planned until 11.59pm tomorrow night.
Balpa general secretary Brian Strutton said:
Pilots are standing firm and have shown just how resolute they are today. British Airways needs to start listening to its pilots and actually come up with ways of resolving this dispute.
One family has expressed their anger at being “stranded” by BA due to the pilots' strike.
Georgina Chapman from Hertfordshire accused the airline of “not caring” after cancelling her family's flights from Cyprus to the UK following her sister's wedding.
BA offered a return flight on 12 September instead, according to Chapman, which would result in her husband and brother-in-law missing out on work.
“After trying to call BA 300 times - in tears and wasting nine hours of my holiday - I finally got through, only to be told I wasn't entitled to anything,” she told Sky News.
“And as I'm already on holiday they would only refund me part of my ticket, which was £460 to use to buy other tickets.
“But if I was to buy flights, you're looking at around £250 each. And we have now extended our accommodation for three extra days, plus our car hire, our dog boarding and extra spending money.
“I am also missing extra unpaid days off work.”
Chapman said the whole ordeal was costing them around £2,000.
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