London – British Airways canceled all long- and short-haul flights out of London’s Heathrow Airport on Thursday afternoon and diverted arriving flights after a labor dispute escalated.
The company said flights would remain grounded until at least 6 p.m. today.
The one British Airways flight arriving daily at Denver International Airport from Heathrow on Thursday and the one departing from DIA for Heathrow were canceled, DIA spokesman Steve Snyder said. Gate Gourmet’s largest customer in the United States is United Airlines. Gate Gourmet no longer has offices in Denver but services airlines out of other airports.
Sixty-two short-haul and 44 long- haul outbound flights at Heathrow were canceled, an additional 14 short- haul flights and an unknown number of long-haul flights en route to Heathrow were being diverted to other airports in Britain and other flights bound for London were being canceled before taking off.
The cancellations were announced after British Airways’ staff joined a labor dispute involving the airline’s caterer, Gate Gourmet.
A union representing Gate Gourmet, which provides onboard meals for British Airways flights, said the company had fired 800 workers Wednesday. The company said only 667 workers had been dismissed.
British Airways’ workers represented by the same union, including baggage handlers and loaders, stopped work Thursday in sympathy with the fired catering staff.
Later Thursday, another union representing British Airways’ check-in staff advised its members to stop work for health and safety reasons after disgruntled passengers took out their frustrations on staff.
British Airways chief executive Rod Eddington said in a statement Thursday that the cancellations were necessary because “of the crippling operational impact of unofficial industrial action by staff from the Transport and General Workers Union.”
“Because we have not had sufficient airport staff to operate flights into or out of Heathrow, nearly 100 of our aircraft and 1,000 pilots and cabin crew are in the wrong places around the world, and we simply cannot mount a robust operation any earlier,” Eddington said.
No other airlines were affected by the dispute at Gate Gourmet, which is owned by U.S. company Texas Pacific Group.
British Airways has about 550 flights a day in and out of its main hub, Heathrow, carrying around 100,000 passengers. The airline estimated 70,000 passengers would be affected by the cancellations.
The Denver Post contributed to this report.
