LONDON, 13 August 2005 — The scene yesterday outside the British Airways Travel Center in Piccadilly said it all. Angry and frustrated travelers in a quarter mile queue waiting to hear whether they can start their holidays or get back home. British Airways (BA), racked with perennial strikes and labor disputes, is indeed finding it difficult to live up to its self-styled sobriquet of “the world’s favorite airline.”
At Heathrow, there was a glimmer of hope, BA confirmed that “a limited number of flights” would take off late in the evening. But there would be no hot meals served, because the main strike at Gate Gourmet, the airline catering company which supplies all BA flights and which is owned by a tough new breed of American venture capital firm, is still on.
Yet, because of the chaotic state of BA’s communications with their stranded passengers totalling over 300,000, Heathrow Airport is jampacked as angry passengers await news of any chance of getting on to their flights.
