London ? Britain’s High Court delivered an early Christmas present to around one million travelers on Thursday by granting British Airways an emergency injunction to stop a 12-day strike by its cabin crews.

BA celebrated its success in the latest round of an increasingly acrimonious dispute with workers over pay cuts and reduced staffing levels. The Unite labor union deemed it a “disgraceful day for democracy.”

The strike organized by Unite, which had been due to begin Tuesday, would likely have grounded the majority of BA’s planes at a time the loss-making airline normally operates 650 flights and carries 90,000 passengers each day.

Unite was forced to call off the walkout on a technicality.

The High Court backed BA’s claim that the ballot of around 13,000 workers was illegal because it included around 800 members who had taken voluntary redundancy packages and had already left, or were in the process of leaving, the airline.