Hope Bolger
Reporting from Gatwick Airport

We’ve been speaking to passengers coming through Gatwick Airport this morning.

Adam Brill and his family have landed in London from Berlin.

He told us passport control took around a minute and a half, with military personnel checking their documents.

“It was very easy, we went through customs very, very quickly.”

The Brills will now go on to spend Christmas in the UK with family.

Image source, PA Media

Among the workers striking today and tomorrow are Royal Mail staff. Their decision to strike on the last two days before Christmas means the delivery of last-minute parcels and cards could be affected.

Royal Mail , external- whose workers have already been on strike earlier this month - says it will continue to deliver as many special delivery and 24-hour tracked parcels as possible during the strike days, but letters (with the exception of special delivery) will not be delivered.

The Post Office, external says its branches will still be open, but there will be some disruption to letters and parcel collections.

Oliver Smith
Senior business producer, BBC News

No problems are being reported at Gatwick or Heathrow so far this morning.

Passengers arriving at Gatwick North Terminal this morning have said there are no queues or problems at passport control, with members of the military standing in for border staff.

“Super efficient, super easy,” was one passenger response.

It’s thought likely that Heathrow, the UK's busiest airport, will see longer queues than elsewhere but the airport is saying passenger traffic is free flowing this morning.

Gatwick says it is expecting today to be their second busiest day for arrivals of the Christmas period.

Image source, EPA

British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have stopped selling new tickets for inbound flights to Heathrow on the days Border Force staff strike over Christmas, the BBC understands.

Border Force has asked airports who are expecting passenger numbers to be above 70-80% of 2019 levels on strike days to "suppress demand" in order to better manage the flow of people through border control.

A source at Heathrow told the BBC the airport had met with BA and Virgin, its two home-based airlines, to request a restriction on new ticket sales, which the airlines had agreed to.

British Airways has stopped selling inbound flights on all eight days that staff are expected to strike, while Virgin Atlantic is restricting ticket sales on 23, 28, 29 and 30 December, with the expectation that those will be the busiest passenger days at Heathrow.

Read more here.

Image source, EPA

Most rail workers aren't striking today, but some localised strikes and ongoing disruption mean some train services are running on a reduced service.

According to National Rail, external, disrupted services include:

• Chiltern Railways: reduced service due to industrial action
• Some East Midlands Railway: industrial action is causing disruption
• Heathrow Express: reduced service until 15:00 due to a shortage of train crews
• London Overground: minor delays on some routes
• South Western Railway: reduced service due to industrial action
• TransPennine Express: reduced service expected until the end of the day

The disruption is expected to continue, with a national strike of RMT members due to start at 18:00 on 24 December until 6:00 on 27 December.

Network Rail says that most train journeys will end at 15:00 on Christmas Eve.

Image source, Getty Images

Around 250,000 passengers arriving at UK airports today are being warned to expect delays as Border Force staff begin striking over pay, jobs, pensions and conditions.

Aviation data company Cirium said 1,290 flights are scheduled to land at airports affected by the strikes today, with a total capacity of more than a quarter of a million passengers.

At Heathrow - the UK's busiest airport - 579 flights are due to land today and an estimated 10,000 passengers will touch down before 7am alone.

Cirium said a total of 8,910 arriving flights with a combined capacity of nearly 1.8 million seats are scheduled at affected airports across all eight strike days.

Steve Dann, Border Force chief operating officer, said there are "robust plans in place" to limit the impact of the strikes, but the "contingency workforce will not be able to operate with the same efficiency as our permanent workforce".

He said the organisation cannot predict the extent of any delays to passengers, but "people should be prepared for disruption".

Image source, PA Media

Military personnel, civil servants and Home Office volunteers have been trained to check passports when about 1,000 Border Force staff walk out over pay.

But there are fears that delays in checking the passports of arriving passengers could lead to long queues and even people being held on planes, disrupting subsequent departures.

The PCS said the replacement workers haven’t had sufficient training - normally, officers get five weeks training to do their jobs yet many of the stand-in staff have been given one week.

The union said civil servants from the National Crime Agency had been "trained at the last minute", with one day's training.

But Border Force managers believe they can maintain the same standards as normal for passport checks, and its chief operating officer, Steve Dann, said safety and security at borders will be "non-negotiable".

Officials have refused to disclose the number of replacement staff or the length of training they have received.

Former Health Secretary Ken Clarke has said ministers should be prepared for a period of unpopularity as more trade unions plan to go on strike in the coming months.

Junior doctors are expected to vote for strike action in January in a dispute over pay, at a time when nurses and ambulance staff are also due to strike.

Clarke told the i newspaper: “We cannot return to the situation of 40 years ago when it was accepted that final offers and independent recommendations could always be improved on by any workers prepared to take strike action," he said.

“This makes the government very unpopular in the short term but popularity will return in time for the election if inflation is reduced and economic growth returns.”

Image source, EPA

Motorists have been warned to “take extra care” as thousands are expected to hit the road in the next few days.

The AA has issued an amber traffic warning for Friday and Saturday as the bus and rail strikes are expected to lead to a larger number of people travelling by car.

But as rain is set to hit various areas of the UK over the coming days, National Highways is urging drivers to plan their journeys in advance and take extra care as “even light or moderate rain can have an impact on visibility and vehicle performance”.

A band of heavy rain is sweeping in from the south-west, turning wintry on the hills in the north, when sunny spells will develop behind the rain in Wales and southern England.

Rain and hill snow are also expected in northern Scotland on Saturday with sunny spells and blustery showers elsewhere across the UK.

Temperatures are set to drop after Christmas Day and wintry showers are expected across the north-west on Boxing Day.

Image source, Getty Images

Elsewhere, ambulance workers are planning two more strikes next month in a dispute over pay, but Health Secretary Steve Barclay says further strike action is in no-one's best interest.

Sara Gorton, head of health at Unison, says unlike the ambulance strikes that we saw earlier this week, the strikes planned for 11 and 23 January have the potential to include all groups of ambulance workers.

"On Wednesday, what you saw was road crews - paramedics, emergency care assistants, specialist first response teams - but the scope of the next two rounds of industrial action could include call handlers, dispatchers and people across the rest of the ambulance service," she tells BBC Breakfast.

"We agree with the secretary of state that these are in nobody's best interests.

"What's in everybody's best interest is if the government has a change of heart and decides to engage with health workers and talks to trade unions about the package of measures needed in order to stop the dispute and solve the reason behind it, which is the staffing crisis in the NHS."

Image source, PA Media

The general secretary of the PCS union - which represents Border Force staff striking today - says the strikes could last six months if the government does not "get around the negotiating table".

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Mark Serwotka says he hopes the government will "do the right thing", but if not, the union "can sustain this strike action for months," with a strike mandate in place until May.

"I think that not only could there be six months [of strike action], I think in January what you'll see is a huge escalation of this action in the civil service and across the rest of our economy unless the government get around the negotiating table," Serwotka says.

Speaking about the striking workers he represents, he says many are "the in-work poor" who need more than a 2% pay rise - which is what the government has offered.

Asked whether awarding pay rises could keep inflation high, Serwotka says: "No, and nobody believes that pay awards are causing this current spiral of inflation."

"As we're heading into a recession, if you give a low-paid public sector worker a pay rise, that means they just match the cost of living... they'll spend it on their economy, support the hospitality sector, support British manufacturing and spend it locally - and that's exactly the type of boost the economy needs".

Asked how costly delays at affected airports could be, independent aviation expert John Strickland says that "depending on whether there are delays or missed delays," the strikes will "minimally" cost "hundreds of thousands of pounds today".

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, he adds that costs could run into "much higher figures over time" depending on what actually happens in the days ahead.

"Flights are not surprisingly full, but if passengers are having to rebook to other days... or if on the day they're disrupted, then airlines have to incur significant compensation costs," he says.

He adds that the major concern will be if delays to airport arrivals end up affecting airport departures.

If arrivals passengers are unable to disembark from planes, staff "may not be able to prepare to get on their next flight," Strickland says, "so we could potentially get delays or at the worst even cancellations of outbound flights."

Image source, Getty Images

In about half an hour, we'll find out who's going to be most impacted by the Border Force strikes when several international flights are due to touch down at UK airports.

That's when you'll get thousands of people trying to get through passport control, the Independent's travel correspondent, Simon Calder, says.

The key area, he says, will be the early arrivals at Heathrow this morning, with more than 50 flights scheduled to come in before 7am with 10,000 passengers on board.

"It's probably going to be a lot easier at the other airports - Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow - so many of those passengers will be Brits coming home and they've got passports they can use in the eGates, assuming they're over 12," he tells the BBC.

He says flight cancellations are very unlikely and he's pretty confident today's contingency measures will work, and says "everything is going at normal at this stage".

Image source, Getty Images

Independent aviation consultant John Strickland says strike action will affect airports in different ways, with Heathrow likely to have more pressures put on it due to the number of long-haul flights it serves.

Heathrow, "in the next few hours is going to see the onslaught of long-haul, large aircraft arriving," Strickland says, speaking on Radio 4's Today programme.

"That's a different combination of traffic" to an airport like Gatwick, he explains, which predominantly serves short-haul flights, meaning there aren't so many long-haul and wider-bodied aircrafts.

He adds that an airport like Gatwick will likely have "a higher ratio" of passengers who are eligible to use eGates, while at Heathrow, a bigger mix of nationalities will lead to "more pressures on the system" with some ineligible to use these.

Everything from train services to postal deliveries and hospital care have already been disrupted in the last few weeks, in a month that has been characterised by industrial action.

And today marks the first day of strikes among Border Force staff - including passport control workers.

Here’s a helpful calendar of who is striking when this month and next.

Image source, .

Adam Jones, head of passenger operations at London Gatwick Airport, says the worst case scenario they are predicting for passengers is queues of up to two hours.

Asked whether this is significant delay or not on Radio 4's Today programme, he says: "We don't like anyone queueing at Gatwick," so the two-hour queue is "still a significant queue".

Despite this, Jones says that at present there is no need to control the traffic going through the airport and there are extra staff on hand to help passengers.

Zoe Conway
BBC employment correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Getting away for the holidays was supposed to be so much easier this year.

Covid might not be ruining Christmas but industrial action is causing anxiety for many travellers.

The union which has organised today’s strike by airport security officials - the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) - has been upfront about its intention to cause maximum chaos to people’s flight plans.

But just how disruptive the strike will be is unclear.

The government is warning of longer queues at security on arrival but they’re sounding fairly confident that airports won’t close.

The action could continue well into next year, however, with the PCS saying it could support striking workers for the next six months.

There’s also not much optimism about an end to the ongoing rail dispute.

If that wasn’t enough to contend with, rail fares in England are going up. No wonder then of warnings of heavy traffic on the roads this holiday.

Image source, Press Association

Border Force staff are expected to walk out on eight days between 23 December and New Year's Eve at Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Gatwick, Heathrow (Terminals 2, 3, 4 and 5) and Manchester airports, as well as at the port of Newhaven.

But why?

They are striking over pay, pensions and jobs as part of wider industrial action among members of the Public and Commercial Services(PCS) union - largely made up of people who work in government departments and public bodies.

86% of balloted PCS union members voted in favour of strike action across 124 government departments and public sector employers after the Home Office offered workers a 2% pay rise instead of the 10% they requested.

“Like so many workers, our members are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. They are desperate,” PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said, external.

About 1,000 Border Force staff are expected to walk for eight days from 23 to 31 December, except on 27 December.

Six UK airports are due to be affected by the strike which is over pay, pensions and jobs. The affected airports are:

• London Heathrow
• London Gatwick
• Birmingham
• Cardiff
• Glasgow
• Manchester

Staff at the port of Newhaven in East Sussex will also strike.

All strikers are members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) which balloted for industrial action after the Home Office offered workers a 2% pay rise instead of the 10% they requested.

Military personnel, civil servants and Home Office volunteers have been trained to check passports when Border Force staff walk out.

Image source, Getty Images

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage.

Travellers are set to face more disruption today with about 1,000 Border Force staff expected to begin striking at airports in England, Scotland and Wales.

Members of the the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union are striking for eight days between 23 December and New Year's Eve at Heathrow, Gatwick and several other airports.

Thousands of other civil servants - including driving test examiners - will also be taking industrial action.

Christmas is a very busy time at airports and the strikes are likely to lead to longer queues at passport control.

Stay with us as we bring you the latest this morning.