What they fail to mention is that they could be rebooked on a flight a fortnight later.
This is just a snapshot of life at Heathrow, where I have worked for nearly 30 years. I have never seen the airport in so much trouble and that’s why it was announced earlier this week that the passenger cap has now been extended to October.
There are staff from three different organisations involved in this: Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL), British Airways (BA) and UK Border.
Employees of HAL and BA were offered new contracts for less money, which they interpreted as a cynical hire-and-rehire strategy rather than bosses offering employees a temporary pay cut for a temporary virus.
None of them are happy and, as a result, many staff are thousands of pounds down on their pre-pandemic pay, which has seriously damaged their work ethic, resulting in lengthy queues.
UK Border staff are similarly disillusioned and demoralised due to staff shortages and Brexit changes. They feel they are overworked and underpaid, which again means long queues when entering the UK.
Within many uniformed departments of BA, the entire machine is broken due to apparently bad business decisions. It is estimated that over 40 per cent of staff have permanently lost thousands due to pandemic job and pay cuts.
Add inflation into that and some are as much as 30 per cent down on pre-coronavirus. Only old contract uniform staff have lost money while much of the management pay remains untouched.
