BA to resist union's legal action

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Unite announced it was applying for a High Court injunction "against the imposition of new contracts" for the cabin crew, which it says are due to be brought in on November 16.

But a BA spokesman, who revealed the company had received an injunction application from Unite on Friday afternoon, said: "The changes do not alter contractual terms and conditions for individual crew members and we will resist the injunction application."

He continued: "We have announced changes to onboard cabin crew numbers to enable us to accept more than 1,000 requests from crew for voluntary redundancy and more than 3,000 requests for part-time working.

"Our announcement followed more than nine months of negotiation and consultation with Unite."

The action is separate to a ballot for industrial action which is also planned, a union spokeswoman said.

The move comes as BA faces possible Christmas strikes following a lengthy and unresolved dispute over its cost-cutting proposals.

The BA spokesman added: "British Airways is facing very difficult economic conditions and is heading for a second consecutive year of financial losses for the first time in our history. Everyone within the company knows we must reduce our costs to move back toward profitability."

BA has announced plans to cut staff numbers by 3,700, in addition to a reduction of around 2,500 achieved between June 2008 and March 2009.

Earlier this week, BA said it was "extremely disappointed" at the move to ballot workers, insisting it was not planning to change terms and conditions of current crew. But Unite said it had "no alternative" but to ballot its members in a bid to persuade BA not to impose "unacceptable contractual changes".