Gate Gourmet

Gate Gourmet

Those of you who regularly fly BA, may well have your own views as to the quality of the food on board. However, no food at all on a long haul flight is not a particularly pleasant prospect.

The catering company, Gate Gourmet, has been in the headlines of late as a result of a dispute with it staff that had grounded British Airways flights 10 days ago.

It seems that its troubles are only just beginning, as today it announced that it could go out of business; unless it can agree on new terms with the airline by tomorrow night.

The company issued the warning, as it lost a High Court attempt to ban large protests near the gates of its headquarters at Heathrow.

Gate Gourmet sacked 670 of its 2,000 staff this month, after unballoted strike action and alleged breach of contract. The action gave rise to a walk out by 1,000 baggage handlers and other staff at BA. This cost BA £20M, and left them with thousands of stranded passengers .

Gate Gourmet is now preparing to call in the administrators, Kroll, unless it quickly agrees new terms with BA.

BA have been insisting on some changes to "1970s working practices", including paying staff a full day's pay for half a day's work.

Kroll's first obligation would be to keep Gate Gourmet trading as a going concern as it sought a buyer.

I think there will be trouble ahead, and that travellers may well face some problems over the coming weeks.

I suggest that if you are planning on flying BA, you take your own pakced lunch.