The threat of travel chaos at the height of the summer holiday getaway intensified yesterday as 3,000 British Airways check-in staff voted narrowly to strike over pay.
Fresh efforts will be made on Monday to head off any stoppage, but the first strikes could hit the main airports the following week, with the August bank holiday at the end of the month likely to be a key target.
The GMB members, most based at Heathrow and Gatwick, are expected to be joined by 8,000 members of the Transport and General Workers union at six airports, who will announce the results of a strike vote next week.
The GMB's chief negotiator Allan Black said that his members, "many of them women balancing a stressful service job with caring commitments at home", had been left with no option. The unions have rejected a deal worth 8.5% over three years, or 10.5% if it does not count towards pensions.
Mr Black admitted the 53% majority for strike action from a 48% turnout was not overwhelming, but added: "Our members are not a naturally militant group. A lot will be thinking long and hard about saying yes to a strike in August. The last thing we wanted was to disrupt the customer."
Union officials will meet GMB shop stewards on Monday to discuss a new but undisclosed proposal which might avert action. Possible strike dates will also be discussed. The GMB has three weeks in which to call a strike and must give seven days notice.
BA, which earlier this week announced increased pre-tax profits of £115m for the three months to June urged the unions to continue negotiations, and said they were hopeful for form of resolution.
"Our travelling public do not deserve to be the victims and we will do everything in our power to ensure they are not," said Mike Street, BA's director of customer service and operations. "We continue to talk to our unions and we urge them to accept our offer of independent arbitration - they should have nothing to fear."
Travel industry representatives said they were hopeful that any strikes could be averted. "Each summer we have a number of potential strikes," said a spokesman for Abta. "Probably less than 5% of them go ahead."
In July last year, a wildcat strike against a swipecard clocking on system is estimated to have cost BA £40m and left tens of thousands stranded.
If the threatened action does take place it will be the latest in a long line of miseries to affect air, road and rail travellers in the UK.
Last week's severe storms, which saw 100 flights cancelled, left BA staff floundering to try and reunite passengers with a mountain of 7,000 suitcases that built up at Heathrow. The disruption was compounded by the breakdown of two baggage conveyor belts.
And yesterday, travellers trying to reach the airport faced severe delays after a fatal stabbing on the London underground closed the Piccadilly line between Hounslow Central and Heathrow. Extra buses were laid on.
There was some good news for bus passengers in South Yorkshire. TGWU members at First South Yorkshire accepted a revised pay offer, ending a three week strike, the longest continuous action by bus drivers for 30 years.
Drivers, meanwhile, still had to contend with persistent rain across some parts of the country. Scotland, which was particularly badly hit, finally saw some sunshine, but southern central England and Wales faced fresh downpours, some of which were heavy.
