That would be very expensive for management indeed. It would cost them their jobs.

Don't expect a mass exodus to the Peaty Porter brand though; nor to the unmentionable airline based beside the bit of water between Arabia and Persia; nor to the not particularly pacific outfit adjacent to a notably smelly harbour in far away Cathay.

Not going to happen -- unless the silly buggers of the dinosaur union break the Company through a combination of stupidity and malice in the way that the NUM did.

A much better way forward would be for both sides to negotiate a reasonable settlement somewhere between the CPI and RPI levels, preferably fixed for several years so that the business planners can plan the business.

Yeah but that doesn't appear to be what the management are offering? As an outsider looking in I'd say that's what the union are asking for, some of which being applied retrospectively. I'd say if you get a turnout of 88%, and 91% of them vote in favour of strike action you have a pretty pi55ed off workforce. Also, i can't imagine there would be people who care more about the company than the folk on the line, many of who will hope to spend their entire working career at the airline. Shareholders tend to be far more transient and more interested in making short term financial gains.
More airlines have failed as a result of mismanagement than renumerating their workforce reasonably.

The pay rise each year for many many years has been less than CPI & RPI, this has equated to an annual decrease in buying power, effectively a pay cut. The company has done very well out of this. Now is the time to restore purchasing power, the company is doing well, profits are up. This is why the percentage looks askew, but it is justified.

The managers have shown no restraint in their awards to themselves for salary and performance. If anyone in this scenario is to be labelled dinosaurs it is the management who have shown little flexibility nor imagination and have imposed draconian conditions to each pay round.

Your arithmetic might impress if it correctly presumed that the dinosaur union has a monopoly of the workforce.

It does not.

The old days of the NUM et al are long gone. Those dinosaurs died out. They self-destructed, actually.

Sadly the dinosaurs running many large organisations are still riding the gravy train.

Quite right, simply a significant majority, not a monopoly. Those without will profit by the actions of within those who see solidarity as a way of not being screwed over by neanderthal brutality.