Fact-checking UNITE

Flying With Fish fact-checks UNITE's statement and the claims made within, here are a few extracts:

'- Unite The Union release: Only nine crew turned up for work today out of 1,100.

- BA Strike Fact: Without even having to verify the number of British Airways cabin crew who reported for duty, Unite The Union is releasing conflicting information. In a public statement Unite is stating only 9 BA cabin crew members reported for work, however in a Text Message sent to all BA cabin crew members of Unite, the union stated this “only 26 crew reported for duty today.“ Was it 9 members or 26 members?

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- BA Strike Fact: There is no evidence of any British Airways aircraft having broken an emergency exit door. Unite has refused to reply to enquiries citing this incident or the flight it occurred on. If indeed this occurred, I’d like Unite The Union to please state what flight this occurred on.

- Unite The Union release: Only nine Heathrow flights have gone with passengers.

- BA Strike Fact: Unite the Union claims only nine flight departed with passengers, but goes on to only list seven flights … including Amsterdam, Dubai, Entebee, Frankfurt, Miami, Paris, and Prague. Again, without having to do much investigation, in the process of researching the passenger experience during the BA Strike I have heard from 11 people who flew with British Airways yesterday … none of which flew on the seven flights above. I heard from passengers who flew with BA to Madrid, New York (x3 on 2 separate flights), Boston, Newark, Munich, Milan, San Francisco, Zurich and Glasgow. Given that Unite states that BA 207, a 747-400 operating between London Heathrow and Miami, flew with passengers, a minimum crew for that flight alone exceeds 9 crew…, which leads to again questioning Unite’s statement, that only 9 crew turned up for work. Further more, volunteer crews are not operating on 747 aircraft, further evidence that Unite is unable to keep its facts straight … even within its own press release.'

Do read the whole piece and compare it with the BBC's acceptance of UNITE's claims.