1. Airport staff striking against BAA (owner of several airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted).
They are voting tomorrow. They may have a Christmas amnesty to prevent problems with the holiday travel. Earliest possible date for strike action is December 27, but they think they will wait until the new year.
2. Virgin Atlantic cabin crew are staging two 48-hour strikes - 6am January 9 and 6am January 16.
We arrive at Gatwick at 7am January 2 - I hope they are not striking then.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pauline,
Originally posted by Pauline: We arrive at Gatwick at 7am January 2 - I hope they are not striking then.
What a coincidence! We arrive at the exact same time at Heathrow. Wave as you drive by on your way west. I'm certain we'll only be getting clear of security by the time you pass Heathrow.
Beebee
Posts: 1955 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 09 September 2002
My study abroad son is flying Boston to Heathrow also arriving in the early a.m. on the 2nd-he is on Virgin. Hope for everyone that flying goes smoothly. Beebee, wave to him at Heathrow!
One of my other sons is visiting him and flying on the 9th. I debated between Virgin and BA. So glad I went with BA. He returns home on the 16th so double glad.
Brenda
Posts: 466 | Location: suburb west of Boston | Registered: 27 May 2005
The airport roads are going to be very busy on the 2nd! We are also travelling at 7am , from Liverpool to Italy, Liverpool is thankfully not a BAA airport as they have just announced the strikes by BAA staff are on.
Happy journeying
Julie
Posts: 145 | Location: chester uk | Registered: 21 May 2005
Amy, I wouldn't worry too much yet. I was doing quite a lot of searching for info on the strikes (rumours had been that they might start on 27 Dec, which was the day we fly to Puglia, so I was concerned!). The upshot is that (at least in the UK: Italy is another story altogether...) many more strikes are actually announced than actually take place: the announcement brings a new sense of urgency to the negociation process. So there's still plenty of time for things to change.
Jonathan
Posts: 2945 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
Can anybody tell more what the 48hour strike is? I am suposed to go to England for the first time on Jan 18 to Jan 21 Paris CDG to Leeds and back with Easyjet.
Although the strikes are for 48 hours the after effects will last for many days afterwards. A great many aircraft will be out of position. The security staff may well be on strike and any that are there will be concentrated on passengers, so access to airside for engineers and others will be restricted. This will leave a backlog of aircraft requiring maintenance.
The best way of avoiding havoc is to fly with a smaller airline. The small airlines will be able to divert to non-BAA airports but the bigger ones like BA and Virgin just wont be able to.
That's good. Our Dublin - Gatwick flight was delayed 5 hours and we would miss our Dublin-Sydney flight if our Gatwick-Dublin connection on 12 Jan is similarly delayed.
John "There are two types of problems: those that solve themselves, and those which you can do nothing about" Isabel Allende's grandmother
Posts: 1582 | Location: Mullumbimby, NSW, Australia | Registered: 26 March 2003
Slow Travel Talk 
Any bets?
