Heathrow airport confident most passengers will be unaffected by strike

Traveller numbers fall slightly in November, but airport predicts a busy December

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  Heathrow Airport in London, the UK's busiest, has been a travel hub for decades. Here The National takes a look back at Heathrow through the years. All photos: Getty Images

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  An Airco De Havilland biplane of the British airline, Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited, about to leave on the company’s inaugural flight from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome, later known as Heathrow, to Le Bourget, Paris, in August 1919

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  Waterlogged runways at London Airport - Heathrow's original name - one week before it became Britain's main aerial gateway to the US in 1946

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  The new BOAC maintenance headquarters at London Airport circa 1955

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  The air traffic control room at the airport's new terminal in 1955

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  US film star Marilyn Monroe with her husband, playwright Arthur Miller, after arriving at the airport in July 1956

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  An aerial view showing the runways in 1958

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  The arrivals and departures board in 1960

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  A new airport gift shop, selling items by Chanel, Wedgwood and Pringle of Scotland, in 1961

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  The Queen's Building and the No. 1 Building Europa at Heathrow in 1965

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  The Beatles leave Heathrow for Salzburg in Austria, to resume filming of the movie Help!, in 1965

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  Passenger terminal gates at Heathrow in 1966

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  Keith Granville, managing director of BOAC, holding up a model of the Boeing 747 jet, with the new aircraft hangars under construction in the background, at Heathrow in 1969

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  An aerial view of Heathrow in 1970

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  Passengers boarding the first BOAC Jumbo Jet 747 used for a commercial flight, from London Heathrow to New York, in 1971

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  Passengers going through the departure lounge at Heathrow in 1973

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  Concorde takes off from Heathrow on her first commercial flight for British Airways in 1976

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  Men at work finalising the Heathrow Central underground station before its opening in 1977

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  Queen Elizabeth II passing though the Tube gates at Heathrow Central station on its opening in 1977

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  An aerial view of Heathrow in 1978

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  Passengers waiting near a departures board in 1979

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  Holidaymakers waiting in the departure lounge at Terminal 3 of Heathrow in 1981

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  British Airways employees protesting at Heathrow in 1984

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  Passengers and staff observe a silence in Heathrow's Terminal One to mark the beginning of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997

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  Rower Steve Redgrave at Heathrow with daughters Sophie and Natalie and son Zak after returning from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games with his gold medal

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  Spectators watch the last Concorde land at Heathrow in 2003

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  Fans surround the coach carrying the England rugby team at Heathrow, as they arrived from Sydney after winning the World Cup in 2003

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  Heathrow's Terminal 2 in 2004

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  Passengers queue to check in at Terminal 1 of Heathrow Airport during the Christmas 2006 and New Year period

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  Passengers wait at Terminal 1 on August 10, 2006, after airport security was raised to critical when a terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US was disrupted by police

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  Planes queueing to take off at Heathrow in 2007

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  The new Terminal 5 at Heathrow in 2008

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  Aircraft at Heathrow Airport in front of the London skyline in 2016

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  Members of Team GB arrive from Rio de Janeiro at Heathrow, after returning from the 2016 Olympics, which saw Great Britain's strongest performance at the Games in over a century

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  A composite photo shows planes taking off from Heathrow in November 2016. Forty-two planes were captured between 10.17am and 11.17am and a montage was created from those single images

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  Items are arranged during an auction preview at Heathrow in 2018. The contents of Terminal 1, which closed in 2015, were being sold

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  An airline passenger wearing a face mask pushes her bags through Heathrow's Terminal 5 during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020

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  British Airways employees welcome Olympians returning from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021

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  Travellers wait in a long queue to pass through the security check in 2022

Most travellers at London's Heathrow will be not be affected by the strike by Border Force officials over the Christmas period, the airport announced on Monday.

British Border Force workers are due to start industrial action for several days starting on December 23. The work stoppages will happen at several UK airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick.

“We are doing everything we can to protect a full flight schedule on strike days, so departing passengers should expect to travel as normal,” Heathrow said.

Passengers with British, EU, US, Canadian and some other passports will be able to use e-gates as usual and their journeys should be largely unaffected on strike days.

“We are ready to welcome millions of passengers heading off to enjoy the holidays with family and friends,” Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said.

“We have extra people in the terminals on the busiest days, including me and my management team, to ensure we get people on their way as smoothly as possible and start to bring the joy back into travel.

“We are doing everything we can to protect full operating schedules on Border Force strike days and departing journeys and the vast majority of arriving journeys should be unaffected.”

Passengers queue inside the departures terminal of Terminal 2 at Heathrow airport. Reuters

On Friday, Britain's Ministry of Defence said military personnel were training to carry out passport checks in case they were needed.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman warned last Thursday that delays to travel were a possibility due to the Border Force strikes, and that people should think carefully about their plans to fly abroad.

Passenger numbers

Meanwhile, Heathrow said that 5.6 million passengers passed through the airport in November, down from 5.9 million in October.

But post-pandemic growth in passenger numbers remains strong. So far this year, 55 million people have travelled through Heathrow, which is nearly 70 per cent of 2019 levels.

Heathrow welcomed 595,000 passengers from the Middle East in November, a 47.6 per cent increase on November last year.

Between January and November this year, more than 6.2 million Middle East passengers passed through Heathrow, a jump of 244 per cent on the same period of 2021.

Heathrow is expecting a busy December, with New York's JFK airport set to be the most popular destination.