UK airport strikes: Border Force staff begin Christmas walkout

Hundreds of thousands of travellers arriving in the UK have been told to expect disruption as passport control workers begin strikes. Border Force staff are the latest UK workers to take action as rises in the cost of living outpace pay. The military and civil servants have been drafted in at six major airports and at Newhaven port. Postal workers will also walk out on Friday and national rail strikes start again from Christmas Eve. About 1,000 Border Force workers, many of whom check people's passports as they arrive in the UK, will strike from 23 to 26 December, and 28 to 31 December. They will walk out at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow airports, and the Port of Newhaven. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) are in a long-running dispute with the government over pay, jobs, pensions and conditions. The Home Office said that it had been working to minimise delays for passengers. Heathrow, the UK's busiest airport, said passengers on departing flights would be unlikely to be delayed - passports are normally checked on the way in to a country. Passengers who are arriving will be able to use passport e-gates as usual, it said. But these cannot be used by all passengers, including children under 12. There are 579 flights due to land at Heathrow on Friday, with an estimated 10,000 passengers arriving before 07:00 alone. This will be the busiest Christmas for airports since 2019, and the first without any coronavirus restrictions in place.<br/>