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On Wednesday 30th November, public sector workers in the UK went on a national strike to protest against a proposed change in their pension schemes. These strikers included staff from the UK Border Agency, who work at Border Control at all of the UK Airports. For the week leading up to the strikes, airports created contingency plans to try and reduce the impact on their passengers if the strikes went ahead. The strikes did take place and it would seem that plans put in place by the airports were successful as there was very little flight disruption or delays at Border Control. Some passengers actually claimed they managed to travel through Heathrow Airport security quicker than usual.

Specialists had predicted 12 hour queues at Heathrow Airport Border Control on the day of the strikes, but this did not happen. It was also thought that large queues at Border Control would result in planes having to wait on the runway for hours to avoid overcrowding at border control halls. This would cause disruption to planes departing and general chaos at Heathrow Airport and other major UK Airports.

However, the predicted chaos did not happen and the airports were successful in minimising delays and queuing times. Heathrow Airport managed to reduce disruption as they brought in extra chairs, stocked up on food and drink and trained additional staff.

On top of this some transatlantic flights were cancelled before Wednesday as airlines wanted to avoid disruption to their flights. This meant there were less people travelling through arrivals Border Control. Some airlines also offered passengers the chance to change their flight date so their planes carried less passengers on the day of strikes which reduced the amount of people queuing at Border Control. This may have contributed to minimising the disruption the strikes could have caused.

Overall, Heathrow and the other UK Airports did their best to avoid disruption by having contingency plans in place. These plans were successful and passengers seemed to be happy with their experience at the airport. It just goes to show, prior planning and organisation can result in a positive experience at airports, even in the face of adversity.