New Wizz Air strikes could cause 'huge disruption' for Brits at end of summer
Passengers flying with Wizz Air have been warned to brace themselves for substantial delays and disruption after airport workers announced a strike.
Employees at GH London Ground Handling Services Ltd, which serves the airline, have inked in industrial action for the end of August targeting London Luton Airport, potentially impacting Brits heading home from their holidays.
Over 80 members of Unite will stage three initial days of strike action. The first 24-hour strike will take place on Wednesday 30 August followed by further walk outs on 6 September and 13 September.
Unite regional officer Richard Gates said: “The strikes will cause huge disruption to Wizz’s schedule but GH London has brought this dispute on itself."
The workers will walk out for three days (Getty Images/iStockphoto)A spokesperson for Wizz Air said: "“We are in touch with Luton Airport and our ground handling partner and are doing everything within our control to limit disruptions for passengers. In case of any disruptions, we will reach out to any affected passengers who booked directly with the airline via email and SMS and let them know their options as soon as we have an update.”
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The strike announcement comes the week after fresh industrial action was declared at Gatwick airport for later this month, when workers will strike for eight days, including the August Bank Holiday weekend, in pay disputes.
The strikes will involve over 230 workers, who are members of Unite and employed at Red Handling, a ground handling company and Wilson James, which operates the passenger assistance contract at the airport. Both companies have failed to make offers that meet the workers’ expectations, the union claimed.
Red Handling workers are scheduled to begin their first tranche of strike action at 12.01am on Friday 18 August with strikes concluding at one minute to midnight on Monday 21 August. The second strike will begin on 12.01 am on Friday 25 August, ending at 11.59pm on Monday 28 August.
The strikes at Wilson James will begin at 12.01am on Friday 18 August ending at 11.59pm on Sunday 20 August and then from 12.01am on Tuesday 22 August ending on Thursday 24 August at 11.59pm.
Red Handling is responsible for ground handling for Norse Atlantic, Norwegian, Delta, TAP Air Portugal and Saudi. During the first four-day strike action at Red Handling, Unite believes that 216 flights could be disrupted or delayed, affecting approximately 45,000 passengers.
The strikes impacting Wizz Air come amid a difficult month for the company, which announced that it is cancelling a number of flights due to a number of "accelerated inspections" of its engines taking place. The airline said that it would be contacting affected passengers and offering them options such as alternative flights, full refunds, or 120% airline credit.
A statement from the airline read: "Wizz Air announces today that due to the accelerated inspections of several of our GTF engines mandated by Pratt&Whitney, we have made adjustments to the network resulting in cancellations of some flights on selected days between certain destinations.
"Passengers on the affected flights will be offered an alternative flight schedule, provided full refunds in the original method of payment, or offered 120% of the original fare in airline reservation credit. In the instance a booking was created via a travel agency or an online travel agency, we advise customers to reach out to the agency which owns the booking to make necessary changes to the reservation. Wizz Air also recommends checking the spam folder for emails about possible schedule changes."
Similar disruption has caused issues for easyJet passengers, some of whom had their flights cancelled by the budget airline. Tens of thousands of easyJet customers have had their holiday plans disrupted after the budget airline axed a huge number of flights this summer.
The airline has cancelled 1,700 summer flights in July, August and September, many of them from its main UK base Gatwick, impacting 180,000 passengers, it announced last week. Rather than cancelling services at the last minute as has happened at points so far this summer, easyJet is pre-emptively moving flights around. While 95% of customers impacted by the changes have already been put on another flight, around 9,000 are currently without a replacement.
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GH London Ground Handling Services Ltd has been contacted for comment.
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