As chaos at Heathrow Airport continues, with news of travellers queuing for hours to clear border control and collect their baggage, it appears that things could get a whole lot worse.
A strike by refuellers based at the airport, which will cause delays to hundreds of flights, is set to go ahead later this week after workers rejected a revised pay offer.
That’s according to news just released by Unite, the UK and Ireland’s leading union.
The workers are employed by Aviation Fuel Services (AFS), which is responsible for refuelling half of the non-British Airways traffic at Heathrow. Affected airlines include Virgin Atlantic, United, Singapore, KLM, American, Emirates, Air France and Delta.
The three-day strike is scheduled to begin at 05:00 tomorrow (Thursday July 21) and end at 04:59 on July 24.
“AFS is wholly owned by incredibly wealthy energy companies who are entirely able to provide our members with a decent pay increase. This is yet another example of energy companies boosting profits at the expense of workers,” says Unite general secretary Sharon Graham.
According to Graham, the workers have not received a pay rise for three years. AFS belatedly made an offer of a 10% increase, but this was rejected by members as it did not meet their expectations.
AFS is a joint venture operation. Its partners include BP, Total Energies, Q8 Aviation and Valero Energy. Energy companies have seen their profits surge in recent months, which in turn has increased inflation and worsened the cost of living crisis, says Graham.
Unite regional officer Kevin Hall says the strike action will cause severe disruption and delays at Heathrow. “But this dispute is entirely of AFS’s own making. It initially refused to enter into negotiations, and only belatedly made an offer that workers judged entirely unacceptable.
“Even at the eleventh hour strike action could be avoided if AFS made a substantially improved offer. The clock is ticking for AFS.”
