Dubai: The longstanding holiday carol “I’ll be Home for Christmas” is taking on a little bit more uncertainty for UK expatriates in the UAE booked to fly home this coming holiday weekend.
A groundswell of labour actions by three separate airlines British Airways, Swissport and Virgin Atlantic in the United Kingdom could present travel delays across the UK for expats flying into Heathrow and making connecting flights to other airports across their home country.
As many as 120,000 UK expatriates call the UAE home, some of whom, return home every holiday. Conversely, throngs of UK relatives fly from Heathrow into UAE for Christmas as part of the more than one million visitors from the UK who travel annually every year to the country.
British Airways said in a statement on Tuesday to Gulf News it will work to keep operations normal despite a strike action called for by Unite union on behalf of BA’s mixed fleet operations at Heathrow airport for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
The airline said the strike is working on contingency plans to ensure its long-haul flights to destinations such as the UAE where British airways operates three daily flights to Dubai and a single daily flight to Abu Dhabi.
“We remain focused on resolving this as quickly as possible for our customers. We will plan to ensure all our customers travel to their destinations so that their Christmas arrangements are not ruined,” a British Airways spokesperson told Gulf News. “British Airways operates three daily flights from Dubai to London Heathrow and one daily flight from Abu Dhabi to London Heathrow.”
The airline stressed on Tuesday that it plans to be fully operational in coming days.
“British Airways is planning to run a full schedule on Christmas Day and Boxing Day despite proposed industrial action by Unite,” the airline said in a statement.
Alex Cruz, British Airways CEO and chairman, said: “We are making sure that this attempt to ruin Christmas for thousands of our customers fails. Over the weekend we have been working on detailed contingency plans to ensure that we are able to operate our normal flight programme from all our airports on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day.”
Media reports in the UK note that 1,500 check-in, baggage handlers and cargo staff of Swissport voted to strike on December 23 as well as Christmas Eve at 18 airports across the country.
Virgin Atlantic, meanwhile, is staring down a new work-to-rule campaign by its pilots beginning on December 23 in another worker dispute with the airline that appears indefinite.
