Airports brace for chaos as control assistants walk out

Press, 27 August 1977, Page 9

Airports brace for chaos as control assistants walk out

International

Bl

ROBERT D. HERSHEY,

Jun., of the ‘New York Tinies,’ ’through NZPA

London Air-traffic control assistants went on strike at British airports just before midnight on Thursday , /midday yesterday New Zealand time), making nearchaos a certainty for at least four days in the peak summer tourist season.

Travellers rushed to Heath- [ row Airport in last-minute dashes to get away for a long holiday week-end. Lines < the main gates were said' * j officials to have stretched [ 10 deep for 200 metres. British Airways alone can-j celled 67 flights. Most; Heathrow departures were 1 delayed by many hours. The principal scheduled American transatlantic car-j riers, Pan American World; Airways and Trans World; Airlines, were unwilling to [ guess what would happen; today. But they were advis-[ ing passengers to check ini for flights as usual even I though yesterday’s delays! averaged three hours, and I one Pan Am flight for .Seattle was more than six hours late leaving London. The Civil Aviation Authority asked the 70 airlines using Heathrow to cut flights in and out of Britain by 50 per cent. “I’m afraid all passengers!

can look forward tomorrow to very long delays,” a S.A.A. spokesman said yesterday “Some people may not even get a flight at all.” A flight information clerk for T.W.A. said the impact of the walk-out was “totally unpredictable.”

British Airways cancelled 40 per cent of its flights for today. Travel to the Continent by ferry and train boomed as the deadline approached, and space for the week-end was said to be almost completely booked. Monday is a bank holiday in England, with probably a million travellers planning to use the country's airports. The 850 flight-control assistants are seeking substantial pay increases they say were negotiated more than two years ago before the imposition of formal wage restraints. The Government, which employs them, maintains that to pay the

money would violate its! guidelines and thus threaten' a general wage explosion. The union asserted that by mid-morning every airport in Britain would be in absolute chaos and that as many as 5000 flights, including those passing over British air space, would be affected each day. The union decided that the strike would continue next [week at the control centre in Prestwick, Scotland, [which handles much trans-[ Atlantic traffic. Assistants at [the centre serving Heathrow 'are to continue beyond Monday to operate an 1.8. M. [computer used for planning and monitoring flights. The 250 assistants there edit flight information and feed it into the computer : where it is analysed and i given to their superiors, the controllers, who talk to pilots. The pilots are said to be doing no more than their normal work.