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...imposed by the airline last month - can now no longer go ahead. The court's decision marked a "disgraceful day for democracy," the trade union behind the strike, Unite, said in response. But the 1 million passengers that could have been affected were undoubtedly relieved by the decision. And BA, for its part, said it was "delighted." (See pictures of Heathrow Airport...
...BA's bank balance, then, stifling the strike was key. In applying for the High Court injunction, the carrier argued that the union's ballot wrongly included hundreds of BA staff who had already agreed to take voluntary redundancy before any industrial action would have started. Unite insisted that it had tried to find out which of BA's 13,000 cabin crew were planning to quit but that the airline offered little help. Discounting them would have done little to change the result, though: 92% of voters were in favor of a strike. (See the top 10 worst business...
...surprisingly, Unite pledged Thursday to hold another vote, a process that usually takes at least a couple of weeks. But by bungling the first one and choosing to stretch out the proposed strike over 12 days - a duration BA staff weren't aware of at the time of the ballot - Unite may have let the momentum swing BA's way. Derek Simpson, the union's joint general secretary, admitted on Dec. 15 that the length of the stoppage was "probably over the top." Passengers, meanwhile, sided firmly with the airline. "It is disgusting that BA staff realize they can throw...
...Everyone is obsessed with soccer, and everyone loves it even if they don't play - like me, for example," says Sheikh Ali Abdel Ba'i, one of Egypt's state-appointed Muslim clerics, of the national pastime. "Football captures people's hearts. It's a game for the people...
History offers a warning to the unwieldy, too. Even if they trim their operating budgets, BA/Iberia will still be carrying serious weight - the combined firm should fly some 60 million passengers each year. But that calls for slick organization, something BA hasn't always enjoyed. (Remember the opening of Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5?) "When United [Airlines] went into Chapter 11, they were the largest airline in the world," says Pilarski. "Airlines that went under didn't go under because they were so puny they just needed to be bigger. If BA at their size is not efficient, something...