During the beginning of the Easter holiday period, British Airways will be cancelling around 32 of its flights each day to and from Heathrow Airport.
This decision was made because 1,400 security workers at Heathrow Airport who are members of the Unite union are participating in a salary dispute and have planned a 10-day strike over the issue.
BA stated that it had provided affected customers with a variety of options to choose from.
Heathrow has stated that it will be putting in place contingency plans to guarantee that it can “operate as normal.”
Employees at Terminal 5, which is used by British Airways, as well as those who inspect cargo, will take part in the action being planned today.
The walkout is scheduled to begin on the 31st of March and continue until the 9th of April. The action was not prevented by discussions that took place the week before.
The airport has requested that BA cut the number of flights it operates on those days by 5%, and the airline has ceased taking ticket orders in the meantime.
The airline said in a statement, “We’ve unfortunately had to make a minor number of alterations to our itinerary.
“We have offered customers whose travel plans have been interrupted a choice of options, including rebooking onto a new flight with us or another airline, or demanding a full refund,” the company said. “We have apologized to customers whose travel plans have been affected.”
A spokeswoman for Heathrow Airport stated, “We will not let these pointless strikes damage the holidays that our passengers have worked so hard to achieve.”
The airport announced that it will be deploying an additional one thousand employees, in addition to its management team, to provide support to passengers travelling during the Easter holiday. These employees will be located at the terminals.
It was stated that travellers should help ensure a smooth departure by checking the status of their flight before travelling to the airport and having their liquids and gadgets ready for inspection in case it takes “a bit longer than usual to get through security.”
The general secretary of the Unite union, Sharon Graham, stated that their members are unable to make ends meet due to the low pay offered by Heathrow. They are being pressured into engaging in strike activity due to necessity, not greed.
Heathrow has stated that it has made a wage increase offer of 10%.
Earlier this year, some airlines have already been forced to delay flights as a result of strike activity in other countries, most notably France.
The strike that began in Germany on Monday has also resulted in cancellations.
