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BA Strikers Return to Work but 300,000 Air Travellers Face Agonising Delays

Posted on: Saturday, 13 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

THE holiday chaos endured by hundreds of thousands of British Airways passengers will last for another week, i t emerged last night.

Up to 300,000 travellers still face severe delays, despite the end of the wildcat industrial action yesterday which crippled the airline.

The illegal strike forced BA to cancel more than 650 Heathrow flights at the height of the summer holiday season, costing it up to Pounds 40million. It also meant 100 of the airline's aircraft-and 1,000 pilots and crew were last night in the wrong places across the globe.

As a result, it will be several days before BA can fully return to normal, meaning holiday plans could still be thrown into disarray well beyond the busy weekend.

Last night the 1,000 BA groundstaff whose lightning strike had led to the chaos agreed to return to their posts, allowing the airline to resume a limited service The first two flights, to Paris and Glasgow, took off shortly after 8.30pm. BA said 32 services would depart last night.

But a spokesman admitted: 'We've got planes and crews stuck half way around the world, thousands of miles from where they should be. We're doing the best we can but it'll be days before it's back to normal.' Air industry consultant John Strickland said: 'It's much easier for short-haul flights in the UK or to Europe to get back to normal, but with intercontinental flights it's much more complex.

'They can be away in Singapore or Australia for two or three days and you need to get the crews back and they've got to be properly rested within the legal allowances.' The chaos began on Thursday when the BA groundstaff, members of the Transport and General Workers Union, walked out in sympathy with sacked workers at the Gate Gourmet catering firm, which supplies the airline's in-flight meals.

But even though the so- called 'secondary action' was illegal, neither the Government nor the union condemned the strike.

Last night the TGWU was still in talks with the conciliation service ACAS to try to resolve the dispute with Gate Gourmet.

The BA strike threw Heathrow's Terminals 1 and 4 into chaos as thousands of passengers were left stranded both in Britain and abroad.

The airline was forced to put 4,000 passengers up in hotels overnight on Thursday. Another 1,000 slept on terminal floors.

Some holidaymakers took out their frustration on airport officials, with many complaining of a lack of information.

Around 500 passengers were rebooked on to other flights while their luggage sat on trolleys in an outbuilding where it had been abandoned by staff the day before.

Hundreds of other passengers who turned up for cancelled flights had to wait in specially erected marquees until they could be processed by check in staff.

They were all given numbers and told by BA staff that they could only enter the terminal when their number was called out over a megaphone. Sally Smith and her husband Kevin, 47, a policeman, travelled with their two teenage children from their home in Oxted, Surrey, yesterday morning to get a flight to Lisbon for a week's holiday.

The family ended up going to Gatwick in the hope that they would be able to catch a flight from there. Mrs Smith said: 'There just seems to be a complete lack of communication.

'This country is falling apart; if one thing goes wrong, suddenly everything collapses. We call it Great Britain but I think we should remove the Great.'

Mark Smith, 41, a sales engineer from Norfolk, told how he was taking his wife Tina, 37, and their three young children to Australia for a holiday to coincide with a job interview he was having in Sydney on Tuesday.

'I am worried I could miss my job interview if this isn't sorted out soon,' he said.

His son James, ten, said: 'I just want to get to Australia to see the kangaroos. I don't want to be stuck in the airport.' BA was also accused of giving passengers the wrong advice by telling them their tickets were valid for other airlines when they were not.

The advice prompted passengers to leave huge queues, where they had been waiting for several hours at Terminal 4, to head in vain for Virgin at Terminal Three.

To add insult to injury, some passengers were accused of overreacting by Heathrow's managing director Mick Temple, who denied the situation was chaotic. 'Clearly in these circumstances, passengers find it difficult to see through what is going on here,' he said.

'If you are one of those passengers affected, getting information is always a challenge. I am not downplaying the situation but chaotic is not an appropriate description of the scene we face today.' The strike also affected thousands of passengers waiting to fly home to Britain who have been left stranded across the globe.

Yesterday BA travellers were being offered refunds or alternative flight dates but because of the backlog they will not be able to travel until after the weekend.

Julia and Charles Clark, of Epsom, Surrey, had to rebook their tickets for a flight to Montreal for almost two weeks later, forcing security guard Mr Clark to rearrange his time off.

Mrs Clark, 60, said: 'The way we were treated by BA staff was despicable.

They didn't give us any information at all, just handed us a telephone number which we couldn't get through to.' Five other airlines staffed by BA ground crew were also affected by the strike Qantas, Finnair, Sri Lankan Airlines, GB Airways and British Mediterranean Airlines.

BA faces the prospect of a costly legal battle with stranded passengers over compensation.

Under European legislation, passengers are entitled to up to Pounds 400 if their flights are cancelled with less than two weeks' notice.

That could give BA a bill of tens of millions of pounds, but last night it argued it was not liable because the wildcat strikes which forced the cancellations were 'extraordinary circumstances' beyond its control.

THE strike by BA groundstaff was not only hugely inconvenient. It was illegal.

They stopped work not because of a dispute with their own employer but in sympathy at the sacking of catering staff with a different firm.

Such so-called 'secondary action' has been outlawed since the 1980s when it was banned by Margaret Thatcher's Tory government.

It was included in legislation to combat the sort of militant union action that had led to the notorious Winter of Discontent in 1979.

Then, it was a common union tactic for workers in vastly different areas of employment to call industrial action in support of staff in other sectors.

Also banned was the use of flying pickets to bolster strike lines.

Despite the illegality of the BA staff's actions, neither their union, the Transport and General Workers Union, nor the Department of Trade and Industry condemned it as such.

Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)

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