Flights chaos at Heathrow

Thousands of holidaymakers face chaos at Heathrow today after British Airways cancelled 21 flights.

It followed the axing of 22 flights last night which caused "pure pandemonium".

More delays and cancellations are expected and BA faces huge difficulties maintaining its packed schedule over the bank holiday. The cancellations were being blamed on staff shortages, with the levels of check-in and other ground staff well below that required. There were also reports of shortages among cabin crews. The airline said more than 5,000 travellers had been affected so far.

Passengers facing long delays today reacted angrily. South African tourist Terry Allan, 34, said: "An airline as big as British Airways must surely know how many staff it needs to operate its routes." A total of 10 flights leaving Heathrow were cancelled this morning and 11 incoming flights were axed. BA blamed today's disruption on crew and aircraft being out of place following last night's cancellations.

Passengers faced chaos as 10 short-haul flights were cancelled when BA could not open check-in desks last night. Three US-bound flights were also cancelled after technical faults. Passengers flying into the airport had long waits on the tarmac. Flights from Heathrow to Berlin, Munich, Helsinki, Glasgow and Aberdeen were cancelled, as were arrivals at Heathrow from those five cities.

Massive queues built up as passengers showed up for their flights only to learn

they had been cancelled. Chaos

ensued as baggage halls were swamped with a backlog of flights and passengers on incoming flights were kept waiting on runways for more than two hours after planes had touched down.

The scenes were repeated this morning. A long line of holidaymakers and businessmen who had been due to fly by British Airways to Zurich at 9.25am were left queuing at the airline tickets sales desk after the flight was cancelled.

Steve Allum, 47, an insurance broker who had been due to fly to Switzerland, said: "We have been told the next flight is at 12.05pm but obviously there are already people who will have booked on that flight so really we just have to pray that there will be enough space for us to get on.

"We made a point of checking to see if there were any delays before we came and there was no disruption reported but we turn up here and the flight is just cancelled."

Robert Banks, a 39-year-old businessman from Basingstoke, said: "British Airways clearly have problems and in a way I am not surprised they are having difficulty getting staff in.

"Morale has got to be very low if they are threatening strikes but I don't think this sort of cancellation nightmare for travellers will improve their situation any further." Many travellers stranded in the Heathrow lounges said they could not find anyone from BA to tell them what was going on.

This is a repeat of the criticism made against the company during last year's wildcat walk-out by BA check-in staff.

A BA spokeswoman apologised for the cancellations today but insisted that out of a total of 500 flights in and out of Heathrow every day "it was not that much". She added: "There is a bit of a backlog but we are working our way through it."

Unions clams that BA has axed too many jobs in its attempt to cut costs. Since September 11 BA has cut 13,000 jobs in a restructuring programme.

In Terminal 1, BA should have between 180 and 190 staff available for duty but only has 147. There must be at least 60 on duty at any one time but numbers have fallen well short of this.

BA managers are offering staff lucrative overtime rates to cover for their absent colleagues but many do not want to do the work claiming it is "too stressful" during peak holiday periods.

The airline is now planning a massive recruitment drive but new staff will not start until next month.

Passengers travelling today should contact British Airways for information on 0870 8509850 or log on to www.ba.com