Heathrow is entering its busiest week of the year with the smallest hiccup in operations set to trigger a fresh mountain of baggage belonging to British Airways passengers.
Operator BAA conceded the airport would cope only so long as “there are no exceptional events” as a week-long protest at global warming was due to begin at Heathrow on Tuesday.
BAA hopes to minimise disruption after winning a slimmed-down injunction against one of the organisers – the Plane Stupid group. But a spokesman for the Camp for Climate Action pledged the protest would go ahead.
BA blames its problems at Heathrow on hand-luggage restrictions and insufficient staff at security. However, reports of unofficial industrial action persist despite denials by the airline and the baggage handlers’ union, the T&G section of Unite.
A BA spokeswoman said: “There is no industrial action. Our baggage handlers are working very hard. We are constrained at Heathrow because of the large increase in the number of bags because of security restrictions.”
The T&G blamed BA for cutting jobs, but refuted the suggestion of unofficial action.
“There have been redundancies and BA has taken too many people out to train for Terminal 5. We foresaw this at the start of the year. It only takes a technical breakdown, security alert or bad weather and there are not enough handlers to deal with it.”
However, sources close to the situation insisted: “BA has huge problems with its baggage handlers. There is an unofficial work to rule and if anything goes wrong you will see another baggage mountain.”
One industry analyst said: “Heathrow is a nightmare. BA has a demoralised workforce.”