Possible airport strikes!!!

[mandy&Jem]

Finally manage to book flights, only to now find that the airport is planning to hold one day stikes on 7th, 14th and a 48 hour one on the 17th January. I really feel for all the people who could be affected!

We fly out on the 19th January from Heathrow and are really worried that if these strikes go ahead could cause delays for us! Any one else heard anything?????
Extract from Guardian news:


Seven of the UK's major airports, including London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports, face closure as British Airports Authority (BAA) staff including security guards, administrators, clerical staff and firefighters plan to strike.

Two 24-hour strikes will start at 6am on January 7 and January 14. A third strike, lasting 48 hours, will go ahead on January 17 if an agreement has not been reached by union officials and BAA.

Other airports affected are Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, leaving non-BAA-owned Manchester, East Midlands and Liverpool's John Lennon airports to cope with Britain's aviation traffic on strike days. Nearly 400,000 people use BAA airports every day.

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Many

I've heard the same as you and I haven't heard any more since. I'll let you know of anything I do hear, though.

Hugz

Gill

[mandy&Jem]

Wow that was a quick reply! lol. Thanks Gill. x-x

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Mandy

On the lunchtime news today they said that the main groups threatening to strike are the people who screen the baggage, the people who zoom up & down beside the runways in yellow jeeps checking for and removing debris that could burst a plane's tyre, plus the fire-fighters who are apparently specially trained to deal with the sorts of fires that can happen to and around planes.

There was a guy on TV (claimed to be an indepedent commentator) who said that if all 3 groups strike as threatened it will not be possible to maintain any sort of service at all at the 7 airports affected. According to him, the ordinary fire-brgade can't do these jobs instead and or can the army.

He seemed to think it would not be a case of restricted service - where they scrub all the short-haul stuff around the UK and to Europe because there are other ways of getting to both but they keep the long-haul flights running. He said it would have to be a total shut-down.

Seemingly the people involved are all BAA staff, not airline/handling agents' staff, and the row is because BAA have said that staff joining from now on will not be allowed to join the BAA pension scheme.

If the blond, curly-haired guy on the telly is right, it appears that they will end up closing all 7 airports, potentially. If so, my guess would be that long-haul airlines will try to make arrangements to use Paris & Manchester instead during the strikes and maybe other nearby European airports as well.

Gill