Air traffic to Britain unlikely to be affected by Christmas strikes

Swissport strike due on December 23 and 24
BA mixed fleet crew strike on december 25 and 26

Air services to Britain are facing the prospect of two separate strikes before and after Christmas.

Len McCluskey’s Unite trade union served notice of proposed strike action by some employees of Swissport in English and Scottish airports on December 23rd and 24th. Airlines are planning to operate to a normal schedule at present.

Swissport are the handling agent for airlines providing check-in, baggage handling and cargo services at most airports, including Ryanair at Stansted. Ryanair says that “all English flights are scheduled to fly as normal, [but]we may operate hand-luggage only if the action proceeds.”

It is unclear how many airports affected, the level of participation in the strike action and how this may affect passengers should the strike go ahead.

Swissport says it is making plans to minimise any potential disruption to passengers.

Swissport and union officials are in talks to try and resolve the dispute before the strike goes ahead.

Unite, who represent about 50pc of the mixed fleet cabin crew with BA have served notice of strike action on December 25^th and 26^th. The mixed crew staff (those hired after 2010 who operate a mixture of short and long haul services) make up 4,000 of the 14,000 cqbin crew staff.

British Airways said it is trying to keep the effect of the strike on its customers as low as possible and claims that many flights will not be affected:

All flights to and from London Gatwick will not be affected.
All flights to and from London City will not be affected.
All flights to and from Stansted will not be affected.

Flights operated by subsidiary OpenSkies between Paris and New York will not be affected.

Flights operated by British Airways franchise partners (Comair in South Africa and SUN-AIR in Scandinavia) will not be affected.

Flights operated by other carriers (including oneworld Alliance partners) which have a BA codeshare flight number will not be affected
The airline has currently advised that it is aiming to operate all long haul services to and from London Heathrow as normal.

All British Airways short haul services to/ from London Heathrow with flights to/from the below cities are currently being reviewed for these dates and the airline are aiming to publish further details in the coming days:

Aberdeen, Basle, Belfast, Bergen, Bilbao, Bologna, Budapest, Dusseldorf, Gibraltar, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Kiev, Krakow, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Manchester, Marseille, Oslo, Paris Orly, Pisa, Prague, Stavanger, St Petersburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Venice, Warsaw and Zagreb.

At the moment no concrete strike actions are announced, hence the effect of these strike actions on flight operations cannot be estimated at this point in time.

Unite claim 1,500 check-in staff, baggage handlers and cargo crew, members of Unite, the country’s largest union, will walk out for 48 hours at 00.01 Friday 23 December in a long-running pay dispute, and plans to seriously erode terms and conditions.

The strike will affect 18 airports, Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Doncaster, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Gatwick Glasgow, Heathrow, Leeds/Bradford, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle, and Southampton and Stansted.

Relations have been turbulent between BA and Unite. In 2007, cabin crew threatened strike action over salary changes to be imposed by BA management. British Airways losing £80m despite the strike being called off at the last minute.