Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) at Network Rail and 13 train operators went on strike on Tuesday and yesterday, with a third walkout planned tomorrow. Train services will continue to be disrupted today because of a deadlocked dispute over jobs, pay and conditions - which has caused travel chaos all week. Those returning to Britain also faced possible disruption as Ryanair cabin crew staff began a three-day walkout in Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain - while easyJet's operations in Spain face a nine-day strike next month. One passenger at Birmingham tweeted today: 'Congratulations Birmingham Airport, you now have a queue that folds three lengths of the airport! Second time this week you have failed your #SLAs. It comes as photographs showed passengers enduring big queues at Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham airports once again today - in addition to Edinburgh, Glasgow and the arrivals hall at Heathrow Terminal Two. Around half of these are short haul and the other half longer distance - and the action threatens to ground hundreds of flights in total. Some 550 BA flights a day take off and land at Heathrow, but this is expected to rise in the summer - and the airline is now drawing up emergency plans to keep as many flights as possible on strike days. It will inflict a huge financial blow on BA, which lost billions of pounds in the pandemic.
Customers whose flights are grounded will be entitled to receive a refund or be rebooked on an alternative flight on their day of departure, even if it is with a rival carrier.īut with airlines cutting their schedules due to staff shortages and airport flight caps, it is unclear whether there would be enough seats. Unions only have to give two weeks' notice of strikes. If the BA walkouts go ahead, families could be forced to delay or cancel holidays – and face being stuck abroad if flights home are axed. They vowed only to call off the action if BA meets their demands within a week or so. The GMB and Unite unions are expected to set strike dates for around July 22, when the school break begins. More than 700 Heathrow check-in and ground-handling staff voted for industrial action yesterday in a row over pay. Britons heading abroad once again endured huge queues at UK airports this morning - with the situation only set to get worse during the summer holidays after British Airways staff based at London Heathrow voted to strike.