March 27 - How striking security staff at Heathrow will disrupt services
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2023
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Heathrow security staff are striking for three days, causing all kinds of problems for British Airways. I take you through what to expect and when the strikes will be happening.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Monday the 27th of March and I've spent the day looking at the coming strike by security staff at London Heath Row. This is starting on Friday the 31st of March at the start of probably the busiest weekend so far this year. |
| 0:24.4 | Over the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, many families will be looking to get away on holiday |
| 0:29.9 | across the Atlantic to various parts of Europe, to the ski slopes and so on. |
| 0:35.3 | And so understandably, members of the Unite Union have chosen that time |
| 0:40.8 | to walk out in a dispute over pay. Their general secretary, Sharon Graham, says that the staff |
| 0:47.7 | are on poverty wages. Heathrow says no, they'd be given a 10% pay rise plus, quotes, further enhancements. |
| 0:55.2 | Anyway, talks are broken down. No further negotiations are planned before the strike begins. |
| 1:01.8 | And this afternoon, we found out a lot more about what will happen. |
| 1:06.5 | Now, really important to note that only British Airways is affected so therefore if you are flying |
| 1:13.7 | with any other airline or indeed BA from Terminal 5, Terminal 3 rather than Terminal 5 your |
| 1:21.4 | flight should go ahead as normal. The airport says look it's going to be really busy so so allow a bit of extra time, but that will be fine. |
| 1:30.1 | Now, in terms of how much time you should allow, that is absolutely critical. |
| 1:35.7 | Really interesting message from Heathrow. |
| 1:37.9 | Now, you might think that Heathrow would love people turning up as early as possible, because |
| 1:43.4 | when you're at the airport you've got |
| 1:45.4 | nothing to do while you wait for hours to your flight so you of course are going to be spending money |
| 1:49.5 | in the shops in the restaurants maybe even in the bars and so therefore you imagine that they would |
| 1:56.7 | like people to be going through as early as possible but but not this coming weekend. They say if you're |
| 2:03.8 | flying short haul, do not turn up more than two hours ahead. Going long haul, make it three |
| 2:09.7 | hours. Now personally, I don't actually know why there should be a difference. Yeah, most long haul flights |
| 2:16.1 | go from the satellites at Terminal 5, |
| 2:19.5 | that's B and C gates. But anyway, that's what they say. Personally, I would probably say two |
... |
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