Heathrow strike suspended, temporary truce agreed between union and airport

Monday, August 5, 2019

A temporary truce was reached between the airport management and Unite union before less than six hours of unprecedented strike was due to start at Heathrow.

The strike was due to begin at one minute past midnight on Monday morning and talks regarding settling of the bitter pay dispute between 4,000 workers including security guards, firefighter and engineers went on all weekend before the strike.

The industrial action planned for Monday was suspended on Sunday evening although a strike is still likely to happen on Tuesday.

The union believes that the massive profits Heathrow earns should be equitably distributed. There was a claim that the airport’s chief executive, John Holland-Kaye earns as much in two days as some of the employees do in a year. However, the airport insists that it an excellent employer.

Plans for walkout on Tuesday and 23, 24 August are still on however, Unite instructed its members to report for work on Monday.

For today more than 100 flights had been cancelled or diverted for today as the news came in very late.

The agreement to ‘uncancell’ all flights  on other airlines came very late and British Airways commented that it will reinstate all the cancelled flights.

Air Canada and United flights were not dispatched from Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Washington DC and Chicago on Sunday night.

Considering the original timing passengers will rebooked on alternative flights close. Under the European air passengers’ rights rules the current cancellations and any further disruption was not the airlines’ fault  and so there will not be any cash payout.

More flights will be cancelled in advance if Tuesday’s strikes goes ahead as planned. This will be a strategy to limit the scale of the problem.

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