Heathrow struggles with fraught post-Covid labour relations

Security officers said it had been “hot and hectic” at London’s Heathrow airport this summer. While airline and airport executives try to pin the blame on each other for summer travel chaos, the officers are dealing with the fallout from cancelled flights and big queues at Heathrow’s terminals — in teams that are inexperienced and overworked. “Every day I come in and there’s someone new,” said one long-serving security guard, who works for Heathrow and had seen frustrated passengers resorting to “fisticuffs” over queue-jumping. New recruits train for a month, but it takes another three to six months to learn the job properly, he reckoned — if seasoned colleagues are at hand. At the moment, “it’s the blind leading the blind”, he said, adding: “Once you’re behind, it’s impossible to catch up.” Other staff working at the UK’s largest airport — all trade union members speaking to the Financial Times on condition of anonymity, for fear they could lose their jobs — had a similar story. Too many people left in redundancy rounds at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, Britons’ demand for travel has surged back, but employers at Heathrow have struggled to rehire in a buoyant labour market where many people have found better jobs elsewhere. Some of the workers who remain at Heathrow feel under intense pressure. “I used to walk into a restroom and think, if anything goes wrong tonight, the people in this room will be able to deal with it,” said one engineer employed by Heathrow for more than 20 years. “Now, I walk into a restroom and think . . .” He broke off and whistled to convey dismay. Heathrow is the biggest workplace in Europe. It is an ecosystem that runs smoothly when tens of thousands of staff — from cleaners, caterers and cabin crew to baggage handlers, engineers and refuellers — work seamlessly together. But a crisis in recruitment and labour relations is straining the system to breaking point.<br/>