12-Day Strike Will Ground British Airways

Passengers of struggling British Airways will be struggling themselves this holiday season if a strike by cabin crews announced today goes forward. Should labor and management not reach a deal, the job action would ground flights between Dec. 22 and Jan. 2. The walkout by 12,500 workers over staffing and budgets would affect around 910,000 travelers and cost the cash-strapped airline almost $500 million.

Details of the proposed strike, approved yesterday, come as BA announced a pension fund deficit of $6 billion, but the airline says the two are unrelated. “The pension scheme is not an issue that is part of the ballot,” a spokeswoman tells the Guardian. “Once we had reached an agreement with the pension trustees, we had to release it to the market.” (More British Airways strike stories.)