Talks aimed at ending the row behind last week's walk-out by British Airways baggage handlers at Heathrow were said to be "finely balanced" last night as airline staff worked to clear the flights backlog caused by Thursday's wildcat strike in sympathy with sacked catering workers.
Discussions between management at Gate Gourmet and the Transport & General Workers Union are aimed at finding a solution to the dispute, which saw some 650 workers sacked last Wednesday for taking what the company claims was unofficial industrial action.
Gate Gourmet has since re-instated a number of workers who it says did not take part in the action, but the union is seeking to have all the dismissed workers re-instated.
"There have been a number of discussions today and these are ongoing. I think it is still finely balanced," said a source close to the talks last night.
It has emerged that the catering firm reportedly considered provoking strikes last year, so staff could be replaced with cheaper labour.
A memo leaked to the Daily Mirror sets out a 15-week timetable to goad employees into striking in order for them to be replaced with lower-paid east European workers.
A Gate Gourmet spokesman admitted that the plan had been put forward, saying: "The document was fielded as a proposal by former management and it was subsequently presented to current management in 2004.
"Current management discarded the plan and its recommendations as entirely inappropriate and undesirable.
"The authors of the plan have since left the company."
The BA strike forced the airline to cancel all short and long-haul flights into and out of Heathrow on Thursday afternoon. Yesterday, passengers endured a fourth day as BA worked to clear the backlog. Following resumption of limited services on Friday night, the airline said 95% of its flights were running as normal yesterday and only 600 passengers were waiting to resume their journeys.
"Everybody who was on a cancelled flight now has a reconfirmed ticket," said a BA spokesman. "If not today, they will be going out in the next day or two." But some are angry they have not been given priority over customers with seats for current travel, but are being offered a refund or rebooked on later flights.
Yesterday baggage handlers were struggling to reunite passengers with luggage "stuck in the system". The deadlock between Gate Gourmet and the T&G means flights will leave Heathrow with only water, tea, coffee and snacks. According to the union, its talks with BA are aimed at seeing if the airline, as Gate Gourmet's biggest customer, could help break the deadlock.
BA has not put a figure on how much the dispute has cost but analysts calculate it could be between £30m and £40m.
Yesterday BA played down suggestions it will cut up to 15% of its baggage handlers when it consolidates all its Heathrow operations in the new terminal 5 from 2008. A spokesman said it had not yet decided on working practices.
One report suggested BA would be unlikely to renew its contract with Gate Gourmet when it expires next year. The caterer supplies BA with around 80,000 meals a day - the only company at Heathrow to supply a single airline on this scale. Speculation follows a war of words between BA's chief executive, Rod Eddington, and Gate Gourmet's chairman, David Siegel. Mr Eddington said that it was a "huge disappointment" to "become embroiled in someone else's dispute". Mr Siegel insisted the blame lay with the baggage handlers and other BA workers, pointing out BA staff had taken industrial action each August for three years.
· An investigation has begun after a BA flight from Birmingham landing in Hanover, Germany, overshot the runway and ended in a meadow. None of the 45 passengers and four crew members was injured.
