Holidaymakers could be facing travel disruption this Christmas after unions representing British Airway’s 14,000 cabin crew announced they would ballot staff on strike action. If cabin crew do vote to take action, the first strikes are likely to be in early December and a series of rolling strikes could ground planes and cripple the airline in the run-up to the busy Christmas travel period. The airline lost £401 million last year and BA’s management wants to reduce its cabin crew budget by about £140 million a year. If a strike does go ahead, then the main effect would almost certainly come in the second half of December, precisely the time when many consumers chose to fly abroad to visit families for the Christmas holidays. So cancellations and delays are expected.

For those flying from UK airports and who suffer delays or are stranded, then it’s useful to know what rights you have. Under the European directive of Air Passenger Rights, all EU operators have a duty of care to passengers and should be responding to claims for delay by providing at least food and drink vouchers for those caught up in the delays at the airports.   If you are stopped from boarding, you may be entitled to compensation between €125 and €600 depending on flight distance and the delays incurred when re-routed.  For long delays, you may request a refund of your ticket if the delay exceeds five hours, but only if you decide not to travel.

The only snag is that, as with so much EU legislation, what is given in one hand is often taken away in the other. Under these rules the airline can claim protection for delays relating to, yes that’s right “strikes” amongst others. The protection the airlines have is bad news for passengers as losses from Weather, Air Traffic Problems, Security & Safety, Political Unrest, and Strikes are reasons why an airline will not pay out compensation to travellers.

So what about travel insurance? Under the delay section of a policy, most insurers will give some benefit for periods of delay faced at the airport. Do check your individual travel insurance documents as some of the cheaper basic policies do exclude this protection.

This article is brought to you by Travelandinsure.com – specialist in ethical travel insurance.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 3:22 pm and is filed under General Travel Advice, Travel Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.