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Airports manage to cope despite immigration strike
Heathrow Airport claims it managed to keep immigration queues at 'normal levels' yesterday despite strike action by border control staff.
Airports operator BAA said contingency plans helped prevent delays but it warned that today (Thursday) was expected be busier than usual.
As a result, it has put extra customer services staff on standby to support passengers.
"As a result of the whole airport community working together over the past few days, more immigration officers were on duty and fewer passengers arriving than would otherwise have been the case," said the BAA spokesman.
"This put us in a better place to avoid the serious delays and widespread disruption at Heathrow that had been previously forecasted."
BAA said hundreds of customer services staff were equipped with Blackberries and iPads to keep passengers up to date.
"Our teams will continue to work hard to mitigate disruption to passengers in the aftermath of the strike today."
In regular Twitter updates throughout the day, Gatwick Airport also said there were no delays.
By Bev Fearis
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Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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