UK airports warn of gridlock, delays

Passengers arriving at BAA Ltd’s Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, on Wednesday will have to wait up to 12 hours to clear immigration if a strike by customs staff proceeds, the London field’s operator warned as the government said it will ensure UK borders are safe.

Normand Boivin, chief operating officer of Heathrow, wrote to airlines yesterday to ask them to cut loads in half in order to avoid “gridlock.” Gatwick Airport, south of the UK capital, has asked airlines to help passengers switch flights.

“Modelling of the impacts of strike action on passenger flows show that there are likely to be very long delays of up to 12 hours to arriving passengers,” Boivin wrote in a letter posted on the airport’s website. Passengers will be forced to stay on planes as queues become too long for terminal buildings and “this in turn would quickly create gridlock,” he wrote.

Unions representing border staff, teachers, health workers and civil servants are planning strikes to protest plans to make government employees retire later and contribute more toward their pensions. Ministers say the move, part of Prime Minister David Cameron’s £80 billion- ($124 billion) programme of spending cuts, is fair as the more-than five million workers who contribute toward public sector pensions get benefits no longer available in the private sector.

Middle managers at the UK Border Agency who were expected to step in to cover for striking colleagues on Wednesday have refused to do so because they are angry at the treatment of Brodie Clark, the immigration chief who resigned in a dispute with Home Secretary Theresa May over the easing of passport checks, The Guardian newspaper reported, citing unidentified government officials.

“We have reluctantly concluded that UKBA will not be able to provide a contingency plan to support normal operations,” Boivin wrote.

“We will plan for a normal flight schedule, but we are requesting all carriers to reduce load factors on each international flight arriving into Heathrow on 30 November to 50 per cent of normal levels.”

British Airways Plc customers due to arrive at London airports on Wednesday will be able to change their flights free of charge, the airline, which is still planning to run a normal schedule, said in an emailed statement. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd advised customers not to travel to Heathrow in a statement on its website and said it would waive re-booking fees.