BAA Strikes and why you should care

Written by Nick

Note the dates in your diary people. August 12 is our summer d-day, for this is the day that over 6,000 BAA members will finally decide if they strike and what that action will look like. Why should we care? Well, if you are planning on a flight out of the UK in late August, this might well make your life a misery.

Summer Chaos at Gatwick Airport

Summer Travel Chaos at UK Airports

If the proposal for strike action is agreed, then we could see major disruption to flights around the BAA owned airports such as Heathrow and Glasgow to name but two. If you add in the threat of more industrial action by British Airways cabin crew, our summer getaways could be thrown in to chaos.

So what’s the solution? For some, there is no solution, for those who still have a choice, it would appear you need to fly from Gatwick and avoid British Airways. Some of the Gatwick airport hotels are much nicer than the Heathrow ones, including the Gatwick Hilton and some of the airport services seem to be much better these days too, so its not like you don’t have a valid alternative to Heathrow, even if it is a little further away from home. Even then, the Gatwick Express that runs from Victoria has you there in less than 15 minutes from central London.

It probably won’t be as simple as changing airport, as others hurry to snap up flights on alternative operators going out of alternative airports not owned by BAA. The congestion and pressure on airline seats inevitably mean more chaos as a result, even if you are proactive about it now.

Simply put, we need the government to step in and sort this constant mess out. Year after year we see the same problems arise and yet our government sits by idle, too busy collecting the cash off the increased duty on airplane fuel to do anything about it.

We could just vote with our feet and stay at home, but then we’d just moan about the British weather, right?

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