British Airways has started carrying out its threat to fire and rehire thousands of workers – days after unions joined talks with a plan to save jobs. Long-serving cabin crew were served notice this week to either accept an enhanced redundancy package within three weeks, or risk losing it by reapplying for a similar job at much lower pay. BA is looking to cut up to 12,000 jobs from its staff of 42,000, after grounding most flights during the pandemic and warning that business is unlikely to recover to pre-Covid-19 levels until at least 2023. BA had told its senior crew that, if rehired, their pay would be only 80% of current basic in a new single fleet. The airline currently operates with two “fleets” of crew – longstanding staff and a lower-paid “mixed fleet”, which critics accuse BA of setting up to undercut pay and conditions during the strikes of 2010-11. BA now wants to merge the two into a single lower-cost fleet. But the small print now shows that in a new single fleet the basic pay of the longstanding crew would be frozen permanently and eroded by inflation. They may also be rehired at a lower rank, losing a further 10%. Flight pay and allowances, which make up a substantial part of crew earnings, would also be slashed. Another effective 8% pay cut will be enforced by a mandatory month of unpaid leave. One purser with more than 20 years’ service at the airline described the emailed notification as “a new low for BA”, and said he was “slipping into depression over the thought I might not be good enough to fill my own shoes”. The notifications were sent to thousands of employees across the business this week, despite top-level meetings between BA and Unite at the weekend, where the union is understood to have laid out proposals to save jobs. Unite has pledged not to engage in formal talks until BA removes its threat to “fire and rehire” its workforce. Unite’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, said: “BA is living up to its reputation as a national disgrace. Unlike other airlines, British Airways refuses to negotiate. The airline has consistently misled politicians and the British public when it claimed it wanted to consult with its workforce. “MPs calling on the government to strip British Airways of its lucrative landing slots are absolutely right. Unite made a series of comprehensive self-financing proposals in order to mitigate redundancies which we were led to believe would be accepted. This week the company reneged on those proposals. “BA are intent on using the current health crisis to sack thousands while firing and rehiring those that survive on vastly reduced terms and conditions.” A BA spokeswoman said: “We are acting now to protect as many jobs as possible. The airline industry is facing the deepest structural change in its history, as well as facing a severely weakened global economy. “We call on Unite and GMB to consult with us on our proposals as our pilot union, Balpa, is doing. Working together we can protect more jobs as we prepare for a new future.” Balpa is hopeful of reducing the number of pilot redundancies with a proposal, yet to be backed by members, for temporary pay cuts and unpaid leave. Parliamentary criticism of BA reached a new level this week, as Keir Starmer branded their plans “totally unacceptable”, and asked Boris Johnson to personally intervene and back proposals to strip the national carrier of landing slots at Heathrow. A response sent to Labour by Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA’s owner IAG, said such action would put British jobs at risk. Walsh said 95% of slots allocated from the pool at Heathrow over the past seven seasons had gone to foreign carriers, and that “undermining British companies, British jobs and British taxes cannot possibly be in the national interest”. “We are living in a new world environment and the future is going to be very different to the past. The sooner we all embrace that reality, the better for everyone.”