Airlines, airports and travel companies hope this weekend, the first of the summer peak in England and Wales, will pass without major disruption to departing passengers.
Industry hopes were boosted after a planned three-day strike by aircraft-refuelling workers at Heathrow, due to start at 5am today (July 21) and run through to Sunday, was suspended following talks at the conciliation service ACAS on Wednesday.
The Unite union had warned of “severe disruption” after the workers, employed by Aviation Fuel Services (AFS) and responsible for refuelling half of non-British Airways traffic at Heathrow, rejected a 10% pay offer.
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However, the strike was called off after AFS made a revised offer on which the workforce will now ballot.
Heathrow was hoping for improved operations this weekend after capping passenger numbers last week.
But the airport has acknowledged that ground-handlers have only 70% of the staff they employed at Heathrow in 2019 when they are required to handle 85% of the air traffic.
An aviation source warned: “There will be problems. Heathrow still has issues.
“The risk is this weekend becomes a shitshow, then there will be more pressure on the airlines.
“We’ve probably seen all the advance cancellations. But we’ll see more media coverage [of disruption] over coming weeks. There is a narrative of disruption with the media finding stuff that fits it.”
The source added: “There has been a different problem every holiday. The government wants to wave a big stick at the industry, but it is doing nothing.”
In a letter last week, the Department for Transport and CAA told Heathrow to “develop a credible and resilient capacity recovery plan for the next six months”.
A second source said: “Rebuilding the industry from 20% to 80% capacity was never going to be easy without clear visibility of when travel would restart. We will still see some issues.”
Airports continue to ask passengers not to arrive at departure terminals too early and to be prepared for check-in and security.
The fall-out from previous disruption also continues to reverberate.
Edinburgh airport suspended its helpline last weekend following the abuse of staff by people trying to locate lost baggage.
The problem goes back to the school half-term holiday when ground-handling delays at Edinburgh saw aircraft depart without hold bags.
A source said: “Ground-handler Swissport has been working through a backlog of luggage in a warehouse near the airport after a significant number of bags were not loaded on to flights. It’s a legacy of weeks ago.”
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