British Airways Pilots Offered Shares for Pay Cuts

British Airways pilots are set to vote on a deal under which they would receive shares in the company in return for a pay cut, the latest measure to help the airline through the economic downturn, a union said on Thursday.

Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP

Pilots are being urged to accept a draft pay and productivity package agreed between the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA) and BA, designed to save the company 26 million pounds ($42.28 million) annually.

It follows an earlier appeal by BA , which reported a record annual loss last month, for staff to work for free or go on unpaid leave for a period.

"The pay and productivity package will help BA get through the current economic downturn whilst, for the first time, giving pilots the mechanism to take a real share in the wealth they will help to create," BALPA said in a statement.

Under the union recommendation, pilots would see their pay cut by 2.61 percent and their flying time allowances reduced by 20 percent from October.

Pilots' hours would increase and there would be shorter turnaround times on short haul flights.

Nearly 80 pilots' jobs would go through voluntary redundancy.

If certain company targets are met, pilots will be eligible to receive BA shares worth 13 million pounds in 2011, which they must hold for three years before selling.

BALPA members, who make up about 95 percent of BA's 3,200 pilots, are due to vote during the next three weeks.

A spokesman for BA said in a statement it was "pleased" to have reached an agreement with BALPA.

On Tuesday, the company said it had asked for volunteers among its British-based employees to go on unpaid leave or carry out unpaid work for between a week and a month.

Chief Executive Willie Walsh, who earned 735,000 pounds a year and who has promised to work for nothing in July, said the idea was part of BA's across the board cost-cutting measures.

BA, Europe's third-biggest airline by revenue, posted annual operating losses of 220 million pounds and scrapped its dividend in May, saying it had suffered from a downturn in air travel and forecast no immediate revival.

Walsh has said there would be more redundancies after reducing BA's headcount by 2,500 since March last year.

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