British Airways cabin crews will strike over the Christmas period, their union said today, throwing the plans of thousands of holiday-makers into uncertainty at one of the busiest times of the year.

Strikes will begin on December 22 and run for a dozen days, until January 2, said Len McCluskey, the assistant general secretary for Britain’s Unite union. Mr. McCluskey said 92.5 percent of workers voted in favour of the action.

“We are prepared to discuss anything — any issue,” Mr. McCluskey said at a news conference this morning.

The struggling carrier has announced sweeping changes as part of its effort to cut costs, including axing 1,700 jobs, freezing pay for current staff and offering lower wages for new employees. The airline has suffered along with the rest of the industry due to lower demand for travel during the global recession.

Chief Executive Officer Willie Walsh said the cabin crews had been misled by the union about the necessity and fairness of the airline’s new pay and work proposals.

“Our cabin crew union refuses to acknowledge what is going on around it,” the outspoken Mr. Walsh wrote in today’s Daily Mail newspaper. “Like King Canute, it sits by the water’s edge shouting at the waves of recession and competition to go back.

“This cannot work,” he added. “And though the union may be bent on self-destruction, I will not allow British Airways to be pulled under.”

The strike would be the first walkout since three days of action in 1997.

A statement from the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association, a section of Unite, said they had been forced into industrial action by the company.

“We are deeply saddened to have reached the point where we must take industrial action to get our voices heard, but feel that we have been left with no other choice,” the statement said. “We do not want to cause inconvenience, so even at this late stage we offer an opportunity for disruption not to occur.”

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