BA strike update day 20

Unite estimates that, despite BA's vastly expensive and divisive contingency operation, yet again over 40 per cent of BA's operation has been hit by the strike. Flights to important destinations in the BA schedule, including JFK and San Francisco, continue to fly but with passenger numbers severely down and some flights half empty.

Unite has also been advised that so empty are BA's planes, they are now looking for volunteer passengers. This is because, as BA continues to seek volunteer crew to break the strike, it is now encountering applicants with no flight experience at all. Volunteers need to have flown in order to become crew, which is why BA are asking them to fly as passengers.

Some flights take off with strange routes - one weekend flight took off from Gatwick, landed at Heathrow, took off again for Edinburgh and eventually landed in Cardiff. As this is not a BA scheduled route, this can only have been an empty plane or a plane carrying novice crew on their inaugural flight.

At 6am today:

BA operated scheduled flight departures from Heathrow (LHR): 284*

BA world-wide (long haul) flight departures from Heathrow (LHR): 76

BA Eurofleet (short haul) flight departures from Heathrow (LHR): 208

BA flight cancellations from Heathrow (LHR): 107

BA world-wide (long haul) flight cancellations from Heathrow (LHR): 17

BA Eurofleet (short haul) flight cancellations from Heathrow (LHR): 90

BA departures operated by chartered (wet leased) aircraft from Heathrow (LHR): 14

*Total excludes 39 BA codeshare flight departures operated by partner airlines aircraft from Heathrow (LHR)