Effects of Airline Strikes
If we look at the statistics of past 2 years, we will see that a lot of airlines had undergone strikes. Issues that led to these strikes mainly include the petty disputes between management and the employees, either pilots or cabin crew. These disputes, if not resolved, take the form of aggression and are projected in the form of a strike. The major dispute that usually becomes the root cause for going on a strike is wages, pay and conditions of the employees. Most of the time, workers demand a raise in their salaries and management shows reluctance. All the major airlines that got affected from strikes (e.g. BA, American airlines, Spirit Airways, Air Zimbabwe etc.) have similar issues at the bottom. However, in some cases, the demand is justifiable and in others, it is not.
Whatever the reasons for these strikes may be, usually the loss is incurred both by customers and Airline Company but sometimes it is also faced by people on strike. The operations of the Airlines get disrupted if the workforce declares a strike even for one day. Moreover, the clients becomes dissatisfied and company sometimes has to pay additional costs to keep the matters as smoothly running as possible. To resolve the problem temporarily, airline companies hire staff and sometimes bigger aircraft from other companies to provide service to customers. For example, when the staff of BA went on three days strike in March 2010, it had to seek help from Ryan air and Wet leased crafts, cabin crew, maintenance etc. on its flights from Gatwick to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester. When air Zimbabwe had strikes, the airline tried to lease a much bigger aircraft to operate the Harare-London route in an effort to minimize disruptions for the travelers. Hence an additional cost is incurred by the airlines.
Besides airlines, customers also get affected. The unavailability o f services to passengers might make them lose faith to the extent that they stop traveling by a particular airline in future. This in turn penalizes the airlines, as in most of the cases they have to pay back a slightly higher amount to lingered-on passengers. The reputation of the company is also at stake during such crisis.
The employees sometimes get fired by the Air travel service provider if their claims are not just and they continue to disrupt company’s operations. For example Air Zimbabwe fired the pilots who went on strike and did not return after the call by the company. However, the cost is incurred by the company as a loss of human capital. The new staff’s recruitment and training also appears as an additional cost to the organization.
Therefore, the ultimate cost bearer of the trouble caused by the strikes is the airline company. At the end of the day, it has to deal with the customers, employees and other actors of the scenario.
