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Strike at London Airport Grounds Passengers in New York

Posted on: Friday, 12 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 13--A long line of stranded British Airways passengers, many angry, crowded the ticket counter of the airline's terminal at Kennedy Airport Friday trying to arrange alternative flights.

As a strike at London's Heathrow Airport ended Friday, customer service representatives at Kennedy began untangling the travel plans of hundreds of passengers. The airline grounded flights Thursday after 1,000 members of its grounds crew joined a walk in sympathy for a caterers union that had struck to protest firings. The strike stranded some 70,000 passengers.

Some passengers, whose flights were canceled on Thursday, said that the airline had arranged for them to stay at a Ramada hotel near the airport but they were uncertain about travel plans.

"It's disgraceful," said Oceanside resident Steven Shaffer, 59, after an angry confrontation with a British Airways employee. "I will never fly British Airways again."

Shaffer's Saturday flight was canceled, he said, and he had to drive to the airport to obtain information because the carrier's phone lines were clogged.

All British Airways baggage handlers had returned to their jobs by Friday afternoon, said John Lampl, a British Airway's spokesman.

Three flights that had been delayed Thursday were scheduled to depart for Heathrow on Friday.

But that did not comfort people in line at Kennedy.

"I've been standing here for the last hour and a half," complained Michael Farrell of Ireland, as he stood in a British Airways ticket line trying to get a seat on a different flight. Farrell was in New York visiting his daughter, who lives in Queens.

Lampl said that the airline was trying to place British Airways ticket holders on alternative carriers although by Friday most flights were full. All flights to London on one of those carriers, Virgin Atlantic Airways, were fully booked for Friday and Saturday, said a Virgin representative on the phone.

"We have zero availability," she said.

Not all passengers were upset. Manhattan resident Gigi Frerichs, who owns a woman's clothing business, had been booked to fly British Airways to London on Thursday and, from there, to New Delhi, India, where she had meetings for work to attend on Saturday.

Her flight had been canceled and she said she would miss her meetings, but she said she was not overly upset.

"You have to go with the flow," she said. "You make plans, God laughs at them."

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BAB, BAY, CD,

Source: Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

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