Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Caldown.

It's Thursday the 20th of April and that means that we are approaching another set of strikes at Heathrow Airport.

It is really important to note that these strikes are only going to affect Heathrow Terminal 5.

No other terminal, no other airport.

But the strikes, which are members of the Unite Union, 1400 of them employed as security staff, will the union says cause inevitable disruption and delays.

And this is at a time when people are expecting to be travelling to the UK for the King's Coronation.

The dates that we are looking at are, well there's effectively three

tranches of strikes. May the fourth to the sixth, the ninth and tenth and the

twenty fifth to the twenty seventh and those are basically aimed at people who

are coming to the UK but also more to the at people who are coming to the UK, but also more to the point, people who are leaving the UK families going on holidays, perhaps over the coronation extended weekend and again over half term at the end of the month.

This is all in an increasingly bitter strike

about effectively pay and the fact that the security staff,

according to the union, do not have anything like a living wage

and many of them are planning to leave. That is not how Heathrow

sees it. They say we looked after people well during the pandemic. We've just actually stepped up

our offer with a lump sum of over £1,000.

The union turned that offer down without putting it to members.

And the union says that the average Heathrow Security Officer

earns a basic £6,000 a year plus a 4,000 pound shift allowance.

And that represents a 24% real terms cut since 2017.

And one in three approximately security officers are planning to walk out.

Now, you might think, well, this is awful and people need to get paid more if they're

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