A summer-long set of strikes by security guards at Heathrow Airport have been suspended after the airport tabled an improved offer in a long-running dispute over ‘poverty pay’.
The Unite union had called on its members who staff security checkpoints in Terminal 3 and Terminal 5, as well as airside vehicle checkpoints, to stage strike action on every weekend of the summer starting on June 24.
In total, 31 days of strike action had been pencilled in, threatening travel chaos for hundreds of thousands of families trying to take advantage of the summer holidays for an overseas getaway.
Heathrow had managed to face down an earlier wave of strike action with little disruption, but this latest set of walkouts was the first time that security guards at Terminal 3 were also joining the dispute.
On Monday, however, the union announced that it had suspended the first weekend of strike action while its members voted on an updated pay offer that had been tabled by Heathrow.
“Following extensive talks with the workers’ union Unite last week, an improved pay offer was made by HAL and, as a gesture of goodwill by the union, the initial strikes were called off,” the union said in a statement.
“Members will now be balloted on the latest offer and they will decide whether or not it meets their expectations,” Unite’s regional co-ordinating officer Wayne King continued.
Heathrow said on Monday that it handled 6.7 million passengers in May and had extended its leads over rival airports across Europe, including Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt Am Main and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
The airport was helped by robust demand on North Atlantic routes, with one in four passengers flying between the USA and Europe passing through Heathrow last month.
