Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Friday afternoon, the 31st of March. March is nearly over with, and I don't suppose that from a travel point of view, many of us will be particularly sad to see it go. We've seen widespread disruption, an awful lot of upset. What we haven't

actually seen yesterday or tomorrow are any rail strikes, which is a good thing, but we have

unfortunately seen rail strikes earlier in the month and we are now in this astonishing

melange of misery for airline travellers let me start where i started actually at five o'clock

this morning london heath row i was there to see how things were running in the light of the strike

by members of the Unite Union.

1,400 staff who normally work in security at the airport

walked out in a dispute over pay.

Now, there were talks right up until Thursday evening

between the airport management and the trade union union and that failed to find a settlement.

And I guess by about 8 o'clock in the evening, which was when we heard that the talks had broken

up, I guess both sides thought, well, by now, we can't get in contact with the security staff to let them know that actually they've got to come to work.

So the impetus for calling it off kind of rather evaporated.

I've been talking to the chief executive of Heathrow John Holland Kay.

He says, of course, he's open for talks.

The strong impression I got was that the airport is very much taking a firm stand, believing it pays people enough,

even though the trade union unite says that their workers are on poverty pay and contrasts that with the billions paid,

they say, in dividends to shareholders in Heathrow Airport and a handsome recompense for Mr Holland Kay himself.

But much more importantly for the traveller is what's happened to the travel experience.

Well, the good news is that actually there was no disruption.

There were a few things that were different.

And for example, fast track security was closed.

...