Don't be too surprised because even the firemen can go on strike in England...

Good luck to those flying in tomorrow. Hopefully it will be much ado about nothing, as some strikes
tend to be these days.

H

Thanks, Hoch. I know alot of these weenie roasts do come a cropper sometimes....

Maybe alot of folks who could change their flights plans will do. Unfortunately, I couldn't, needing to be in Dublin by Friday.

I'm not surprised everybody can strike in the UK. It's in the DNA by now. Every country certainly has a different approach to employee relations born from their particular histories.

Alas, the US air traffic controllers found out about the non-strike law for Federal employees when they called Reagan's bluff in 1981 and got fired on the spot and banned from ever having another Federal job for life.

No matter how much the ire of the everyday person in the UK is piqued by this particular strike, I cannot imagine any laws being changed to favor the public over unions. Just IMHO. But we'll see.

Especially not with the LibDems in the coalition. There will prolly never be an appetite for that, no matter how much the Autumn/Winter of discontent affects the everyday person. Just a guess.

The whole societal ethos of the strike culture in the UK may be too strong for any reforms, even if the voters want them. But time will tell of course.

Just a simple "Good Luck" for everyone flying tomorrow ... we will be interested to hear how it goes [or doesn't].

Fly Safe ^

Border control officers apparently went on strike at 6pm tonight...came into T3 tonight (around 8pm) and there were pretty long queues at passport control (though difficult to tell if they were worse than normal as always quite bad!!). The EU line was also pretty long with 2 desks open (out of 5 in total I think). Luckily there was no queue for IRIS and both machines were working - used it and was straight through despite last time I tried to use it a few weeks ago at T3 it told me my registration had expired.

I'm on the BA1387 MAN-LHR shuttle in the morning.

Not too sure how this might potentially affect domestic compared to international/EU pax though. Hopefully things will run relatively smoothly for all.

MAN-FF

Any update from LHR this morning ?
I'm due to arrive at 5pm tonight...let's hope Iris scan will be working.

BBC News is reporting that LHR is operating normally.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13957122

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Post-Thatcher, the UK has one of the weakest union movements in the EU. The "strength" is a fraction of what it once was. Also, I find your reference to "unions" and "the public" somewhat odd. Retaining a right to collective organisation and bargaining and withdrawal of labour isn't something the Libdems came up with, it's simply seen as a right by the vast majority of the population. The fact that strikes haven't been commonplace in the last decade and that industrial relations have been generally benign reflect the strong economy and rising wages. I suspect if the austerity measures continue to bite, you'll be surprised at the level of activism and the level of public support.

Oh for goodness sake, as you seem to well know, they are not a 'defensive force', they are administrator and officials.

For the benefit of anyone else reading this who is not being silly, of course it is not open borders!

Sounds like a typical American 'lets try to be a as tough as we possibly can be' over reaction, no matter how silly it makes us look in the process.
Little wonder the rest of the world thinks the US is nuts and unable to organise itself!

I suspect if I demanded a 32 hour work week my boss would fire me as well! Not to mention that the strikers agreed to a resolution, signed it, then backtracked and demanded more than 3x what they had just gotten. I'm sure the Americans overreact regularly, but I tend to think that getting fired was a nice solution, as they were also breaking the law and could have been sent to jail.

Additionally, the "lifetime" ban ended in 1993.

Okay, then, report from LHR. Not bad but then wasn't on the 6 a.m. arrival when so many flights come in at the same time--but on the 9:45 late BA. So it was cleared out a bit by then.

Not bad at all at 10 a.m.

The lounge staff at IAD said they were anticipating quite a back up for all of the deluge of early flights, but we would fare better being on the latest flight from IAD. And she seemed to be correct.

Arrivals Hall very busy but glad to see the Fast Track line open, and only about 5 people in it, despite another big plane arriving at the same time BA had done. Nice of them to make that effort on a day when staff were in short supply.

Don't know who was "personing" the border patrol desks (managers or regular staff) but they were very nice and got people through as quickly as possible.

About a third of the non-EU desks were vacant of staff and closed. But they still had enough desks open it seemed to deal with the crowd at about 10 a.m.

Not sure what's going on out on the streets though or in the areas around LHR. I'm staying here overnight, so can't report on the general situation out there.

p.s. Mini trip report though for the IAD denizens...still running that 777 without the AVOD and the old IFE system of waity wait for the next film. :) Sigh.

Uh.
I. Was. Kidding. It. Was. A. Joke....:)

Obviously, not one that translates well into print!

No problem connecting in terminal 5
 

Just arrived from VCE connecting to LAS. Absolutely no impact of the strike on us passers-thru.
:)

Well no, there shouldn't be because you don't enter into the UK....

Security is provided by BAA, who are not public sector so not striking.

No problems at all either this morning or now as I sit in Galleries North. Things appear to be running smoothly, although I'm not sure if the same can be said for arriving Intl/EU pax.

MAN-FF