BERLIN, June 7 (Reuters) – The global airline body slammed unions for walking off the job at a time when carriers are are struggling to turn a profit, dealing with a toxic mixture of ballooning costs, airspace closures and a weak economic environment.

“Pilots and crew must come down to earth. Strikes at this time are short-sighted nonsense,” International Air Transport Association (IATA) Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani said in his opening address at the body’s annual meeting on Monday.

IATA said earlier on Monday it now expects the world’s airlines to post a $2.5 billion profit this year, an improvement of more than $5 billion from its March forecast. [ID:LDE6560L6]

But airlines in Europe will report a combined $2.8 billion loss this year, hit by fallout from a volcanic ash cloud that swept across Europe in April and shut airspace across large parts of the continent as well as labour strikes, it said.

“Labour needs to stop picketing and cooperate,” IATA’s Bisignani said.

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Thousands of travellers have been stranded around the world this year as cabin crew and pilots walked off the job to push for higher wages or more job security.

British Airways (BAY.L) cabin crew on Saturday started a five-day strike — their latest in a series of walkouts since March — in a long-running dispute that has so far cost the London-based airline about 120 million pounds ($173.2 million). [ID:nLDE653210]

German flagship carrier Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) lost almost 50 million euros ($59.7 million) when its pilots went on strike in February and took its union to court to stop the walkout.

Lufthansa Chief Executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber told Reuters on Sunday talks with the pilots were progressing but gave no indication of how close the parties were to an agreement.

BA CEO Willie Walsh, taunted by union leaders for going to Berlin for the meeting and not staying in London to negotiate, roundly criticized the Unite union that represents cabin staff.

“They failed in their efforts to ground BA and they will fail in any future efforts to do so,” Walsh told Reuters on the sidelines of a Oneworld airline alliance presentation, of which BA is a member.

Walsh said there was no point at which there would be an unacceptable trade-off between the savings from the cuts and the cost of the strikes, the cuts had to be implemented to preserve the airline’s future.

U.S. airlines have also been struggling to cut labour costs.

American Airlines owner AMR Corp (AMR.N) has long maintained that its labour costs are above industry average partly because it restructured outside of bankruptcy, while some rivals have used Chapter 11 protection to slash costs in recent years.

U.S. airlines have also been struggling to cut labour costs.

American Airlines owner AMR Corp (AMR.N) has long maintained that its labour costs were above industry average partly because it restructured without declaring bankruptcy, while some rivals were able to slash costs under Chapter 11 protection.

American Airlines Chief Executive Gerard Arpey told reporters on the sidelines of the IATA meeting his company had a a staff cost disadvantage of $600 million a year compared to other major airlines. ($1=.6929 Pound) ($1=.8375 Euro) (Reporting by Maria Sheahan, Ben Berkowitz and Adrian Murdoch; editing by Karen Foster)