Heathrow Terminal 5 security staff strike to disrupt British Airways flights for 10 days

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Keely says:

  21 Mar21 March 08:57

  To give a bit more context here, pay cuts of 20% were imposed in 2021 (take it or lose your job with 2 weeks to decide) . So this pay increase may seem generous but will not even reinstate the wages to 2021 levels. With a backdrop of Heathrow currently being the fastest growing airport in the world….

  • Thegasman says:

    21 Mar21 March 09:19

    Don’t be bringing facts & context into the debate, it’ll hinder people’s ability to get on their soap boxes & pronounce judgment on situations they know nothing about 😉

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      21 Mar21 March 09:28

      Sad to say it really won’t…

  • bafan says:

    21 Mar21 March 12:49

    Any normal person supports the right of the working man (or woman) to improve their working conditions. Too many people in these comments are no doubt working class but have thrown their lot in with the conservatives for reasons beyond me.

    • Catalan says:

      21 Mar21 March 14:48

      because a certain PM allowed them to buy their council house that’s why!

    • Mike says:

      21 Mar21 March 18:32

      If you think the Labour party has any love for the working class then you’re 20 years out of date (at least). The Labour party utterly hates working class people.

      A good read on the topic is Despised by Paul Embery.

• Spare says:

  21 Mar21 March 09:34

  You support other strikes but not the one that disrupts your precious avios redemption flight.

• slidey says:

  21 Mar21 March 09:47

  Would this affect iberia flights from t5?

  • Rob says:

    21 Mar21 March 09:48

    Yes

    • Aisak says:

      21 Mar21 March 09:52

      Are there IB flights from T5?? I thought all was moved back to T3…

      • G says:

        21 Mar21 March 12:39

        Madrid is the only regular T5 service for IB. All other IB services (and oneworld) are at T3.

        • Cat says:

          21 Mar21 March 18:27

          Madrid now appears to be at T3…

        • Aisak says:

          21 Mar21 March 19:37

          Ok. You seem confident about your answer.
          Glad to discover that there are other IB services at LHR apart from MAD. And that Qatar, Royal Air Maroc and Malaysian are all housed at T3. Thx

• NFH says:

  21 Mar21 March 11:22

  I’m not surprised that many of them have such a bad attitude when they’re paid so badly. They are often less focussed on security and more focussed on annoying passengers as much as possible, for example by shouting instructions at the queue in breach of paragraph 4.8 of the Heathrow bylaws. Many of them are on a power trip and try to justify their existence by finding problems that don’t exist because they don’t know the rules.

  It’s always a far more pleasant experience in some other European countries where airport security is performed by the public sector, typically the same organisation that carries out customs controls, presumably because they are skilled in searching baggage.

  • Andrew. says:

    21 Mar21 March 13:16

    It’s also performed by the public sector in the USA isn’t it?

    Everyone looks forward to their encounter with TSA. Their friendly attitude, courteous demeanour, and firm but softly spoken instruction is the absolute highlight of every trip through JFK.

    • NFH says:

      21 Mar21 March 13:59

      Despite the TSA’s poor reputation, every encounter that I’ve had with them has been delightful. I almost mentioned them as another example of better public service airport security, but decided not to because of their poor reputation.

  • Bagoly says:

    21 Mar21 March 15:09

    Berlin TXL was always one of the worst, and I expect they were public sector.
    At BER they seem nothing like as bad, which could be either because the airport environment is so much nicer (less cramped) which prompts better behaviour, or because they changed all the staff during Covid.

    • His Holyness says:

      21 Mar21 March 20:51

      Private security in Germany, outsourced to the usual scumsters.

• Chris W says:

  21 Mar21 March 11:38

  Nothing gets H4P readers quite as riled up as minimum wage discussions.

  I don’t know why anyone would choose to do this job during a period of low unemployment. Using the Pret comparison, if the pay is so low for these sort of jobs wouldn’t you choose the role with the most sociable hours and least stress?

  • No longer Entitled says:

    21 Mar21 March 15:12

    Where you not here for the oft repeated expert discussions on vaccines, and before that, Brexit?

    Some people devote their entire life to the study of one subject. Others come to HfP comments to read from those who have filled in the gaps themselves.

  • Londonsteve says:

    23 Mar23 March 12:52

    I’m actually quite pleased the subject engages H4P readers. The demographic on the site is at the upper end of the socio-economic spectrum and yet a lot of people appear to demonstrate real empathy with those that are struggling. We should also be glad that some people are willing to accept the low pay and shift work with unsocial hours otherwise the queues at all airport would be three time as long. It cannot be that wage levels are solely dictated by how acute the shortage of candidates is, that’s why advanced economies have collective bargaining agreements.

• letBAgonesbe says:

  21 Mar21 March 12:48

  I always support every strike action, provided it doesn’t cause an inconvenience to me.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    21 Mar21 March 22:03

    So true! Luckily I’m not flying from T5 during these strikes.

    Crack on strikers.

• Eoc says:

  21 Mar21 March 13:07

  Just to give another perspective..
  I was rolling my case thru the T5 Sofitel on Monday en route to the car park and caught up with a guy wearing a Heathrow hi-vis jacket pushing an empty wheelchair towards reception. He was walking really slowly and in the lift down to reception, he opined that it was really good money at T5 for really not much work and all his mates agreed. Nobody pushed them on productivity (or speed!) , they were so understaffed that they daren’t sack anyone. Just another point of view…

  • Andrew. says:

    21 Mar21 March 13:21

    That happens in every firm, steady paced individuals.

    Besides, if there was a crumbly in the wheelchair, you can imagine the stroppy complaints from the relatives if the pusher was sprinting through the terminal telling the old dear to “scream if you want to go faster”.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      21 Mar21 March 22:04

      Time and place … empty chair might be the place.

    • Lady London says:

      22 Mar22 March 14:00

      🙂

• David says:

  21 Mar21 March 13:42

  I have a flight on very first day of strike. Oh boy. LHR-AMS. Plan A at the moment is arriving 6 hours early.

  • AJA says:

    21 Mar21 March 13:51

    But that doesn’t help if everyone does the same as you. Also if it really does become an issue getting through security expect to be housed outside the check in a HAL tent until 3 hours before your scheduled check in time.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.