Personnel at six UK airports owned by BAA have voted to strike over a pay dispute. The airports are Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen.
Here is the BBC report.
The union will soon announce dates targeted for a strike. They won't just go out for days or weeks on end. Instead, they will announce specific dates on which they will strike.)
In case of a strim\ke, there's a good chance Heathrow would close.
GREAT!!! I am supposed to fly into Heathrow on Augest 30th on Continential. What happens if I can't fly into Heathrow? I am frantic!!
Pamela, I know it's concerning, but as J.C. said, in this type of strike they pick particular days and locations, and the strike is generally only a day at a time. In this case, as the article makes clear, this was only a strike authorization vote, not a vote to actually strike. This means that the workers (only 50% of them even bothered to vote) authorized the union to call a strike if negotiations fail. They would have to vote again to actually GO on strike if that happened (and would take a majority of the covered workers, not just a majority of those who voted). Try not to worry about it. It's very unlikely that Heathrow would close because of a labor dispute.
Nancy
I think you've misunderstood the article. This was a vote which gives the union the right to go ahead with seven days notice. The part of the article which says this is not a mandate is the bosses opinion, not a legal statement.
Having said that, the advice not to worry is good. It's likely that there will be few, if any, strikes and that this is pressure for a negotiated settlement.
Alan
From the BBC today: talks to avert a strike begin Monday. Because security personnel and firefighters would participate in any strike, BAA has confirmed the airports would close on strike days.
Remember that passengers could be rerouted to non-BAA airports like Gatwick, Manchester, Luton, etc. Whether passengers would be on their own to do that or whether airlines and tour operators would do it is a good question.
If memory serves, a similar brinkmanship script was followed during the past year in labor-management disputes at the Royal Mail and the London Underground.
I know USAirways flies into Gatwick and they are part of the Star Alliance. It might be worth a try to see if anyone can switch to Gatwick because it's not operated by BAA.
