British Airways has warned its 12,000 cabin crew that if they go out on strike that they will risk losing their travel perks for life. The warning fired out by the airline came on the eve of the next round of balloting by crew voting on whether strike action is necessary. The majority of the industrial action is due to the airline trying to change conditions and freezing the pay for cabin crew while other have been made redundant.

The airline currently offers staff a 90 per cent discount on full fares to them and anyone they have nominated. They also give two free tickets per year for members that have given at least five years service to the company, which seems fairly generous on their part. This could all be whipped away at the tick of a box as the voting gets underway today. It could well be enough to make some employees think twice before voting in favour of strike action. There were rumours that some staff thought that the last planned strike over Christmas was excessive, luckily it was curtailed by a High Court ruling.

The airline, who has had a touch time of late, lost a staggering £401 million in the last financial year to March 2009 and this year is looking set to be worse. There has been a lot of talk from union bosses about the threat of withdrawing the privilege of discounted travel. They have apparently said it is just talk by the airline, but BA has said it is not a contractual part of the employee agreement and they can withdraw whenever they like.