Thousands of air passengers face travel misery after moves to prevent a three-day strike by British Airways cabin crew collapsed.
Thousands of BA staff walked out at midnight, hitting flights mainly at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, in a bitter row over cost-cutting. A four-day stoppage is planned from March 27 and further action is expected from mid-April unless the deadlock is broken.
Slim hopes of a last-minute deal to head off the BA strikes were shattered when three days of talks between chief executive Willie Walsh and Unite's joint leader Tony Woodley suddenly ended in acrimony on Friday night.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "The Prime Minister believes that this strike is in no-one's interest and will cause unacceptable inconvenience to passengers.
"He also urges BA's management and workforce to get together without delay to resolve what is a dispute about jobs and wages."
Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers said: "Labour's union paymasters at Unite are determined to inflict travel misery on thousands of families. It is disgraceful that they are going ahead with this unnecessary strike."
BA's new offer involved a four-year pay deal, freezing wages in year one, giving 3% rises in years two and three and an increase in 2013/14 based on RPI inflation but capped at 4%, it was disclosed.
The airline also offered to reinstate 184 cabin crew on its Eurofleet and Worldwide services as well as guaranteeing that terms and conditions for current crew would be maintained.
BA said it was confident of handling as many as 49,000 passengers on each of the first two planned strike days, which compares with a figure of around 75,000 for a normal weekend day in March, with some passengers due to travel with other carriers on specially-chartered planes.
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