Border Force strike under way at six major UK airports

Around 1,000 Border Force members of the Public and Commercial Services union will strike over 23-25 December, returning to work at 7am on 26 December, and again over 28-30 December, returning to work at 7am on 31 December.

The action will take place at Birmingham, Cardiff, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow and Manchester airports. Soldiers and civil service volunteers will stand in to conduct some border checks, but passengers arriving into the UK via any of these airports have been warned to expect longer wait times.

Aviation consultant John Strickland told the BBC that Heathrow would likely face the biggest issues due to its scale and the number of long-haul flights it welcomes every day, passengers of which are typically subject to more border checks.

Strickland said Heathrow’s traffic composition was geared towards more worldwide arrivals compared to Gatwick, for instance, which is predominantly short-haul and is likely to have a higher number of passengers who can use airport eGates.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gatwick head of passenger operations Adam Jones forecast the worst case scenario at the Sussex airport would be waits of up to two hours at passport control.

Some 10,000 passengers were expected to arrive at Heathrow before 7am on Friday, something Border Force briefed it had built into its contingency plans. Other airports, though, have warned of potential cancellations.