Airport strike threat called off after 'much improved' deal

STRIKE plans that would have closed six of Britain's major airports were averted last night after nine hours of talks to resolve a bitter pay dispute.

Union leaders called off the threat of industrial action later this month after a "much improved" offer was tabled.

Members of the Unite union will be urged to accept the deal - details of which were not revealed last night - after a pay rise of up to 1.5 per cent had earlier been rejected by engineers, security staff and firefighters.

Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports would have been affected by the action, which was announced last week.

It would have involved more than 6,000 security staff at the six airports and had been expected to target the bank holiday weekend at the end of August.

Both sides had agreed to talks at the headquarters of conciliation service Acas in London in a bid to avert the strike, which would have affected one of the busiest weekends at the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe.

Brendan Gold, national secretary of Unite, said: "We've reached a settlement which we are prepared to recommend to our members.

"We will be undertaking a ballot of our members, and that will commence over the next couple of days, and last for probably about three weeks.

"But that recommendation for acceptance we hope our members will listen to, and we are very pleased to be able to reassure the travelling public that we, for our side, have worked tirelessly to achieve a settlement."

A spokesman for BAA said: "We are pleased that the basis of an agreement has been reached on pay that is fair to staff but which also reflects the difficult economic climate.

"Our priority is to work with our people to improve the service we provide passengers and airlines, and we look forward to doing that in the busy weeks ahead."

The talks followed a vote by Unite members in favour of industrial action in protest at a one per cent pay offer.

The Spanish owners of BAA had offered an additional 0.5 per cent but this was conditional on changes to the firm's sickness agreement, said the union.

Unite had argued that its members deserved a bigger pay rise as they had accepted a wage freeze last year and co-operated with changes to their pension scheme.

Around half of the 6,000 workers balloted by Unite voted, with 74.1 per cent of those who did opting for strike action.

Mr Gold said details of the new pay deal would be released later today once its members had been informed.

Along with the three Scottish airports, Heathrow, Stansted and Southampton would also have bee shut during the strike.

More than 300,000 people flow through the affected airports every day.Peter Harwood, chief conciliator at Acas, said the talks had been "challenging" but was pleased that the basis of a deal had been agreed.

He added: "The details of the deal are confidential until the parties report back to their respective constituencies."

Travel industry expert Bob Atkinson, of travelsupermarket.com, said: "Thankfully, both the BAA and Unite have been able to resolve this dispute knowing that there would be outrage amongst UK travellers if strike action had gone ahead.

"Consumers have already had to contend with a range of challenging travel problems in 2010 - from airports closed due to snow at the turn of the year to airspace shut down and the problems of making claims from airlines after the volcanic ash eruption, together with the BA cabin crew strikes.

"Customers now need reassurance that they will not see problems further down the road and it is time that the split-up of the BAA monopoly at London and in Scotland is resolved once and for all."