V-Flyer

I'm due to fly to Nairobi next Weds, 30th November - the day of the public sector strikes in the UK. Does anyone know or have a good feeling about how the operations at Heathrow and other airports will be impacted? Was naively thinking there probably wouldn't be much disruption until reading the report on BBC that the border staff will likely need to be manned by temporary staff normally office based. Got me thinking what else good be impacted?

Thanks,
Darren

At LHR? Probably nothing that would affect a departing PAX.

The only central government workers I can think of working there would be UKBA and HMRC staff and they are generally more interested on who is arriving than departing.

I agree with Tonty, no affects on departing passengers.

Apart from the arrival of passengers. Sometimes UKBA will hold pax on aircraft as they have no where to accommodate them in the terminal. If this is the case then Virgin and other airlines can't turn the aircraft round for its next flight.

BAA has written to airlines asking them to try and reduce numbers of in-bound pax and is mentioning 12 hour delays

tontybear wrote:BAA has written to airlines asking them to try and reduce numbers of in-bound pax and is mentioning 12 hour delays

:0

So glad I am not returning on Wednesday!

Latest from VS here

Allowing rebookings +/- 4 days either side if you are due to land on Wednesday.

Shocked that VS is not encouraging departing PAX to rebook earlier/later than Weds. It's pretty clear than overwhelmed immigration will lead to planes full of arriving people put on hold at gates, and this will inevitably mean late or cancelled departures.
VS should be encouraging everyone to shift to departure dates before/after the Weds, to minimize their own problems that day, but amazingly they are just suggesting shifting flights for arriving PAX on the website

VS are offering exactly the same policy as BA, UA and BMI (to name a few) for this (i.e. F.O.C. changes on arriving flights only).

As the OP just wanted to say thanks for the replies. Currently ensconced in the clubhouse with the Nairobi flight on time. In fact looks like little or no disruption all day at LHR. Time for a champers refill

Darren

I've heard lots of positive comments about LHR today! Ran smoother than an other day! Free food and drink offered, little or no queues!

Seems the planning was right on this one!

I did post a pic. about the tents outside T3 in preparation ... but it disappeared ?| .

Well I got upgraded on Tuesday on my flight to Prague as it was overbooked. So I'm guessing a lot of people changed their departure dates. No upgrade on the way back though.

Miopyk

Cal346 wrote:I've heard lots of positive comments about LHR today! Ran smoother than an other day! Free food and drink offered, little or no queues!

Seems the planning was right on this one!

Part of that was because they opened more desks than normal and I read that because the airlines offered pax flight changes there were 20,000 less pax going through LHR yesterday.