Airports manage to cope despite immigration strike

Posted 01/12/2011

Heathrow Airport claims it managed to keep immigration queues at 'normal levels' yesterday despite strike action by border control staff.

Airports operator BAA said contingency plans helped prevent delays but it warned that today (Thursday) was expected be busier than usual.

As a result, it has put extra customer services staff on standby to support passengers.

"As a result of the whole airport community working together over the past few days, more immigration officers were on duty and fewer passengers arriving than would otherwise have been the case," said the BAA spokesman.

"This put us in a better place to avoid the serious delays and widespread disruption at Heathrow that had been previously forecasted."

BAA said hundreds of customer services staff were equipped with Blackberries and iPads to keep passengers up to date.

"Our teams will continue to work hard to mitigate disruption to passengers in the aftermath of the strike today."

In regular Twitter updates throughout the day, Gatwick Airport also said there were no delays.



By Bev Fearis

Originally published 1 Dec 2011 at: http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/398/f/5923/s/1a8da7b2/l/0L0Stravelmole0N0Cstories0C1150A4830Bphp0Dmpnlog0F1/story01.htm