Strike Fear Averted At BAA

The strike threat has been lifted at all six BAA airports after talks that went on for nine hours deep into the night resulted in a new offer being presented by BAA. The offer will be balloted to the union members, but in the meantime there will be no strike action.

As reported yesterday it was predicted that an improved offer would be made as the alternative was to shut down all six BAA airports including Heathrow the busiest airport in Europe in terms of passenger numbers.

The result of the ballot will be announced in 3 weeks, although no details have been revealed about the improved offer it is though that it will be accepted as both parties want to avert further unrest for the travel industry.

Fresh Talks To Take Place

Fresh talks are due to take place today to try and avert strike action at all six BAA airports, a ballot was returned last Friday voting in favour of a strike. Of the 50% of workers who voted strike action was voted 3 to 1 in favour.

The airports would be forced to close as the workers in question are firefighters, medic workers and security staff, leaving the airport unable to operate because of safety issues. The workers have been offered 1% pay rise which was called measly by the union.

BAA says it will move quickly to avert the strikes and an improved offer is expected today, but still claim that 1% is a fair offer considering the drop in passengers due to the recession and the ash cloud.

The August bank holiday has been mentioned as a potential strike date causing chaos for families flying from Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen or Southampton airport.

Ballot Result Expected

The result of the BAA strike action is due to be revealed later, in what could cause mass heartache for UK travellers throughout September. The ballot was put to 6,185 members to decide whether to strike or not over a pay dispute.

BAA has offered its workers at all six airports a 1% rise which the Unite Union described as paltry, but BAA insist it is fair considering the current climate. Even worse BAA has confirmed that its airports would shut on strike days causing chaos for the UK.

Other arguments include bonus target that BAA said if reached would be paid, it was missed by 3% but Unite feel that was harsh and the workers should have been rewarded. Both bosses for Unite and BAA said talks were ongoing.

Heathrow Increases Passengers For July 2010

BAA celebrated a record number of passengers passing through its Heathrow terminals last month. The airport owner which owns Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Southampton, Aberdeen and until recently Gatwick saw some 10.9 million passengers across all its airports for July.

Heathrow also recorded its busiest ever day on the 18 July as the airport catered for 232,000 passengers and was up by 3.5% to 6.7 million for the month. Its other airports had mixed results as Glasgow, Stansted and Aberdeen’s traffic fell. Whilst Edinburgh and Heathrow increased.

Travel firm Tui confirmed they had taken more bookings for their holiday packages but admitted their profits were down due to the low prices they were charging to try to entice Uk holiday makers abroad. The news was welcoming at Heathrow but there is still a long way to go before the travel industry returns to normal.

BAA Announce Ash Cloud Losses

BAA has announced it lost an estimated £28m during the six day UK air space strike imposed by (NATS) during the Icelandic ash cloud debacle, over 100,000 flights were cancelled causing BAA’s monthly passenger average to drop by 1.6million resulting in the massive financial losses.

Colin Matthews BAA’s chief executive stated it had been a tough time getting through the recession and it was unwanted additional cost. He also said that plans would be made to recover some of the lost revenue.

On a brighter note passenger numbers had improved in the three months up to April in what has been the worst recession on record according to Mr Matthews.

Siim Kalls the European Union transport commissioner stated yesterday that European governments would be ordered to pay up to €2.5bn in compensation to the travel industry for the subsequent losses due to the volcanic ash cloud