London's Heathrow Airport cancelled over 100 flights
ahead of planned two-day strike next week, British media reported
Friday.
Unite, Britain's largest union, said its 4,000 members overwhelmingly
rejected a revised pay deal ahead of crunch talks between the union
and Heathrow Airport bosses, with plans of a walkout on Monday and
Tuesday likely to go ahead.
The airport, Britain's biggest, pre-emptively cancelled 172 flights
as last minute talks to avoid the action were being held, according
to British newspapers the Telegraph and the Independent.
Heathrow said in a statement that, as part of a contingency plan, it
was working with airlines to "consolidate and reduce the number of
flights operating during the strike period."
The airport said that it remains committed to finding a solution with
Unite, but charged that "the proposed strike action has been
unreasonably designed to impact passengers taking well-deserved
holidays."
In a statement, the union warned Heathrow bosses "against opting to
pay millions of pounds in compensation to airlines for cancelled
flights and causing passenger misery, rather than going the extra
mile to give hardworking staff a fair pay rise."
Unite said that some 88,000 passengers could be disrupted if 20 per
cent of flights are cancelled on Monday and Tuesday, amounting to
compensation of 2.3 million pounds (2.8 million dollars) for the
airlines affected.
The total bill could double if the union goes ahead with a further
48-hour strike on August 23-24.
A general view of Heathrow Airport. File picture: June 5, 2018