Strikes threatening BAA’s seven UK airports, which include Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, have been called off following an agreement between trade unions and BAA’s management on the future of the company’s pension scheme.

The agreement, reached after eight hours of talks, provides for a period of meaningful consultation and negotiation in the coming months on the scheme. BAA had announced plans in September to close the company’s current final salary scheme to new members of staff joining the business, but as a result of the agreement it will be reopened to new employees.

A strike planned for next Monday had already been called off after union negotiators met BAA management earlier this week, and today’s agreement sees strikes planned for January 14 and January 17 also cancelled.

Unite national secretary Brian Boyd said: “This is good news for our members, for BAA and for air travellers. It is a total vindication of the action taken by our members in voting to defend their pension scheme.

“Our members didn’t want to strike, but had been left with no option because of the attack on their pension scheme. We have now achieved agreement that there will be no interference with our members’ pension scheme without proper talks.

“Our members’ pension scheme is financially sound, and there is no reason to close it to new entrants. We are glad that BAA accepts that no changes should be introduced without proper consultation.”

Negotiations officer for the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) Paul Smith added: “We are pleased that we have been able to reach an agreement that has satisfied everything we wanted to achieve. We are also pleased it has been achieved without the inevitable disruption that would have been caused by airport closures. We now have a serious piece of work to do with management to look at the future of the pension scheme, its health and its impact on the business.”

A spokesman for BAA said: “We welcome the announcement by trade unions today that an agreement has been reached and all proposed industrial action has been cancelled. This is good news for our passengers and airline customers.”

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