Three more rail workers vote to strike, raising fears of major disruption

Hundreds of thousands of British Airways passengers are set to see their travel plans disrupted again after the airline announced it would cancel more than 10,000 flights until the end of October.

At the same time, railway unions have voted more to strike at operators, including LNER, which could worsen transport disruption in the summer.

BA said its decision was designed to "protect holiday flights" after the chaos seen during the Easter and Midterm holidays due to 'a lack of staff at airlines and airports.

This will eliminate an average of around 100 flights a day as she continues to struggle to stick to her schedule at amid labor shortages and strike threats at its main Heathrow hub.

BA said that all affected flights in the latest round of cancellations would be for short-haul flights, where there are more multiple daily departures on major city routes.

That makes following a similar number of preemptive cancellations made in early May for the entire summer season, and adds to a relatively small number - around 650 - removed from July timetables last week.

The airline said the entire aviation industry "continues to face significant challenges, and we are fully focused on building the resilience of our operations to give customers confidence that they deserve."

The latest schedule reduction, which cut nearly one in seven BA flights originally on sale, was made possible by "the airlines amnesty slots" from the government, announced last month.

This has allowed BA and others to scale back operations this year without losing the right to valuable landing slots at Heathrow and other busy airports, which normally have a 'use it or lose it' rule .

p class="dcr-xry7m2">BA said: "The Government has recently decided to grant industry wide consideration for potential disruptions this summer. Although we don't want to go any further, it's the right thing to do for our customers and colleagues. This new flexibility means we can further reduce our schedule and consolidate some of our quieter services so that we can protect as many of our holiday flights as possible.

flights were unaffected and the majority of customers would depart as scheduled, but he added: 'We don't underestimate the impact this will have and we're doing everything we can to get their travel plans back on track. We are in contact to apologize and offer rebooking options to new flights with us or another airline as soon as possible or to issue a full refund.

Hundreds meanwhile, three railroad operating companies have voted for industrial action, potentially increasing the impact of rail strikes this summer.

< p class="dcr-xry7m2">TSSA union members of East Coast long-distance operator LNER and Essex commuter service c2c voted to strike, while those at Northern voted to an action without a strike. The polling results follow similar votes for strikes in CrossCountry and East Midlands on Tuesday, and in Avanti last week.

The union said it will not would not immediately call dates for industrial action, but would consider next steps with each operator's workplace representatives. He has previously suggested action could be scheduled to affect the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham at the end of the month.

TSSA members cover various roles for companies rail services, including station and ticket office, customer services, train control and management.

Network Rail union members are largely executives who were working as emergency personnel when the RMT union signalmen went on strike last month, allowing a limited number of trains to run on the main lines. A coordinated walkout could completely disrupt services. The result of the TSSA strike ballot at Network Rail is expected on Monday.

The Aslef union, representing train drivers, will announce the results of votes at nine railway companies. rail operations on the same day as the RMT union, representing 40,000 railway workers across 13 rail operators and Network Rail, resumes talks to settle its dispute on Monday...