More than 1,500 cabin crew and ground staff at British budget airline Easyjet will vote on whether to strike this summer over a pay dispute.
The Transport & General Workers Union (T&G) said any strike would likely begin in six weeks, the peak of the busy summer holiday period, if staff voted in favour of industrial action.
The union said it had decided to ballot staff within the next two weeks after long-running talks on a two-year wage deal collapsed.
However, Easyjet said it had gone direct to about 2,000 cabin crew with a two-year pay offer and accused the union of stirring up speculation about industrial action.
Easyjet said it had offered cabin crew a 3.5 per cent pay rise for the current fiscal year to end-September and a bonus of 2 per cent. Next year, it promised a further 3 per cent pay rise. About 1,500 of the 2,000 cabin crew were union members.
But the T&G said the wage offer was inferior to a recent package offered to pilots. "We have shown a readiness to be flexible in our demands, but the company is now indicating that it is no longer interested in negotiating," T&G negotiator John Street said in a statement.
Easyjet shares were trading 1.2 per cent firmer at 329-3/4 pence at 12.26am.