Merry Christmas, and Happy New Flight

This time of year brings many traditional offerings: Christmas itself, too much food, too much shopping, short days, chilly weather, and a British Airways strike. Even if I’d stopped off at the bookies, the chances of getting half decent odds would have been so close to zero as to make the bet pointless.

The man with the job that very few others would go near, Willie Walsh, will not have relished the news that his cabin crew have decided to walk out from three days before Christmas until after New Year, and without a break for such trifling things as work.

The Guardian estimates that this will hit a cool million passengers, many of whom may not readily return to BA. But rival carriers won’t be too worried: any spare seats on popular routes will be snapped up, and not at the lowest price, given another day or two.

BA and Spanish carrier Iberia are still on course to merge. It will be interesting to see which of the two ends up the more dominant partner. There cannot be two winners.