Passengers flying into the UK face months of disruption at the border as passport officers gear up for prolonged strikes, the head of the civil service union has warned.
Border Force officers on Friday began eight days of strikes and government officials have warned people to prepare for long queues and drafted in the military to help those arriving through immigration during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
As the first passengers landed on Friday morning Mark Serwotka, head of the PCS union, which includes Border Force staff, warned of months of strikes across the civil service.
“I think that not only could there be six months, I think in January what you’ll see is a huge escalation of this action in the civil service and across the rest of our economy unless the government gets around the negotiating table,” Serwotka told the BBC.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak said on Friday he was “sad and disappointed” at the level of disruption being caused by industrial action.
Sunak said his focus was on making the “right long-term” decisions to the benefit of everyone, adding that inflation posed a “major economic challenge” to the UK.
“When it comes to the difficult question of setting public pay, the government has acted fairly and reasonably in accepting all the recommendations of the public sector pay review bodies,” he said.
The morning rush at London’s Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, passed without major incident with the immigration halls “free-flowing”, the airport said, the first sign that contingency planning could limit the impact of the walkouts.
The strikes by passport officers in the PCS union will hit six airports: London’s Heathrow and Gatwick, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester. The port of Newhaven in East Sussex will also be affected.
The industrial action will take place between December 23 and 26 and then between December 28 and 31.
Electronic passport gates will remain open as normal, and departing passengers are not expected to be caught up in the problems.
Airport and airline officials expect longer queues at immigration but are cautiously optimistic that most arriving travellers will not suffer exceptional disruption.
The industry has spent the past month working with the government on contingency plans. Military personnel will be joined by volunteers from within the civil service at immigration, while airlines flying into Heathrow capped ticket sales to passengers arriving on strike days to keep numbers manageable.
Still, the strike represents the biggest challenge for the industry since the summer, when hundreds of thousands of passengers were caught up in severe disruption for weeks as companies struggled to recruit enough staff to manage the return of mass travel after border restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic were lifted.
John Strickland, an aviation consultant, said Heathrow faced the biggest challenge because it handled so many long-haul flights, which used large aircraft.
The potential problems come as the UK’s Christmas getaway also faces disruption from more train strikes.
Rail passengers have been warned to travel only “if absolutely necessary” on Christmas Eve, as the RMT transport union begins another three days of industrial action.
Infrastructure manager Network Rail said train services would finish at about 3pm on Saturday, with some last trains departing in the morning and some locations having no services at all.
RMT members will also walk out during the first week of January, with services again set to be severely disrupted. A union overtime ban will cause problems for many operators even on non-strike days.
The AA has warned that unreliable train services will push more drivers on to the roads and has issued traffic warnings for Friday and Christmas Eve.
“As thousands of people plan to travel to visit family and friends, it is disappointing that the railway can’t offer a reliable option,” said Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus.
Additional reporting by Jennifer Williams in Manchester