Thousands of planes could be delayed during one of the busiest times of the year due to a Border Force strike.
Hundreds of thousands of flying travelers may experience delays today due to the latest strike by Border Force employees.
More than a thousand workers are walking off the job, affecting passport control desks at Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, and Glasgow airports, as well as the East Sussex port of Newhaven.
The strike by Home Office employees of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union will last until early on Boxing Day, followed by a second round from December 28 until early on New Year’s Eve.
More than 10,000 aircraft are scheduled to land at these airports during these hours, and more than 250,000 arriving passengers on Friday have been cautioned to expect delays.
The airports reported that the majority of departing aircraft would not be affected, but some arriving passengers, particularly those unable to utilize eGates, could experience delays.
Royal Mail staff will also be on strike today, their fifth day of action this month, in a “cynical attempt to hold Christmas to ransom,” according to Royal Mail.
The corporation estimates that the strike, which continues through Christmas Eve, has already cost it £100 million.
London and the South East National Highways employees will continue their four-day strike that began on Thursday.
The road planners, designers, builders, operators, and maintainers are imitating colleagues in Yorkshire and the Humber, northwest England, and northeast England.
Hundreds of thousands of workers are on strike this winter as unions seek wage increases by the rate of inflation to protect their members from the rising cost of living.
Train employees will go on strike on Christmas Eve.
Rail employees represented by the RMT union will go on strike from 6 p.m. on Saturday to 6 a.m. on Monday, while East Midlands Railway will be impacted by a strike by the Unite union on December 23 and 24.
Employees of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency will go on strike today and tomorrow in the northwestern part of England, Yorkshire, and the Humber, with further strikes planned in other regions in the coming weeks.
Hundreds of bus drivers employed by Abellio in the south and west London will go on strike tomorrow, December 27 and 31, and for an additional eight days in January over a salary dispute.
In the preceding two months, they have already taken ten days of action.
Additional January strikes by NHS employees
The NHS workforce went on strike earlier this week, with nurses leaving on Tuesday and ambulance personnel following suit on Wednesday.
Pat Cullen, the leader of the Royal College of Nursing, stated on Thursday that she would announce more January strike dates if she did not hear from Health Secretary Steve Barclay by the end of the day.
“The public is aware – as am I – that the only way to avoid more strike action is for the government to stop dithering and repeating the same worn-out talking points, and instead engage in substantive negotiations with me,” she said.
The administration has refused to negotiate salary, stating instead that it will accept proposals from independent pay review organizations.
Ambulance workers, who are represented by Unison, have already declared additional strikes, with London, Yorkshire, the North West, the North East, and the South West all participating on January 11 and 23.
On December 21, over 25,000 ambulance workers from the Unison, Unite, and GMB unions participated in coordinated strike action, the largest strike in 30 years.
Members of the GMB union at nine ambulance trusts are also planning to strike on December 28, and 1,000 union members in the Welsh Ambulance Service will announce striking dates in the new year.
Christina McAnea, general secretary of Unison, stated, “Only through negotiations can this disagreement be resolved.”
The CEOs of NHS trusts have warned that this Christmas could be one of the most trying the health sector has ever experienced, with strikes threatening to exacerbate an “already complex situation.
According to the most recent data, one in four ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour to be transferred to hospital A&E teams last week.
