Fourth day of misery for stranded travellers
Desperate passengers were enduring a fourth day of misery at Heathrow today as efforts continued to clear huge delays caused by a catering row.
British Airways is still struggling to deal with a backlog of thousands of would-be travellers, although the company said the situation at the airport was improving.
Around 85% of short haul and 80% of long haul services operated by the company are expected to run as normal today – the same proportion as yesterday.
However, many stranded holidaymakers have been left angry at BA’s refusal to give them priority over customers with seats booked for current travel.
Instead they are being offered a refund or rebooked on later flights where seats are available.
Gavin Olney, his wife Colleen and their two sons, 13-year-old Nick and Justin, nine, have been stuck at the airport since the strike action began on Thursday.
He said they were forced to buy new clothes because their luggage had been lost by BA, and had also paid for their own accommodation.
The family, from Capetown, South Africa, chose to fly BA to Azerbaijan, where Mr Olney works for an oil firm, and were catching a connection from Heathrow when they became caught up in the dispute.
But, three days on, they were still waiting in a marquee at Terminal 4 with other BA belated passengers.
Speaking at the huge marquee set up for stranded travellers in Terminal 4, Mrs Olney, 38, said: “We chose BA because we always thought it was a good airline - now we know exactly how good it is.”
More than 100,000 travellers have been affected by the disrupted flights, and analysts predict that refunds, loss of flight revenues during peak holiday season, and paying to put passengers up in hotels will cost BA more than £40m.
Meanwhile, talks were due to continue this afternoon between the Transport and General Workers Union and in-flight catering firm Gate Gourmet in a bid to resolve the dispute that sparked the chaos.
Hundreds of the firm’s Heathrow staff were summarily sacked on Wednesday after striking over pay and conditions.
Workers at Gate Gourmet’s main client, BA, then staged an unofficial walkout in sympathy on Thursday, forcing the airline to suspend all its services from Heathrow until Friday night.
The T&G has admitted that the wildcat strike by BA staff was illegal, and called on its members to return to their posts.
It has also reacted angrily to comments by senior Labour MP Barry Sheerman, who accused the T&G’s leadership of “being spineless” and claimed that industrial disputes at Heathrow always took place in August because they were “pre-planned and pre-plotted”.
However, it emerged today that T&G officials held a face-to-face meeting with its representatives on the BA workforce just hours before the unofficial action began on Thursday.
A T&G spokesman said: “There was a meeting before the strike was called. There wasn’t any secrecy about it.
“I’m not aware that any form of industrial action was discussed. It was a briefing meeting to bring people up to speed on what was happening at Gate Gourmet.”
A BA spokeswoman said the possibility of legal action against the T&G for failing to stop the illegal walkout was “not being discussed at the moment”.
“Our priority is our customers. It’s an issue for another day – we’re purely focusing on customers.”
A spokesman for Gate Gourmet said it was currently providing a basic catering service on all BA flights, and hoped to be able to offer a fuller service from tomorrow.
