British Airways

LONDON — Retiree Richard Moore arrived at Heathrow with a suitcase of summer clothes for a Miami cruise only to be sent to Denver. Susan Danby wondered whether plans for a joint 50th birthday celebration in Las Vegas would be a losing bet. The start of a three-day strike by cabin crew at British Airways spurred chaos and passenger angst yesterday as union members promised more airline and rail walkouts in the coming weeks while Britain prepares...

The owner of Heathrow Airport says border control officers are failing to meet their waiting time targets for non-EU passengers but are hitting the mark for carriers of EU passports. BAA Ltd. said Thursday that immigration officers had done worst at Terminal 5, the center of British Airways operations and the busiest terminal at the airport. British Airways has been vocal in criticizing the long waiting times some arriving passengers have endured. BAA's says 76 percent of non-EU passengers were cleared through Terminal 5 within 45 minutes, well short of the target of 95 percent.

LONDON -- British Airways canceled all long- and short-haul flights due to depart from London's Heathrow Airport yesterday afternoon and diverted arriving flights, after an industrial dispute escalated. The company said flights would remain grounded until at least 6 p.m. today. Sixty-two short-haul and 44 long-haul outbound flights due to depart from Heathrow were canceled, an additional 14 short-haul flights and an unknown number of long-haul flights which were en route to Heathrow were being diverted to other airports in Britain, and other flights bound for London were being canceled...

PARIS - British Airways and the Spanish carrier Iberia beat out Virgin Atlantic yesterday in the bidding for British Midland International, the unprofitable airline being sold by Lufthansa of Germany. International Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, will pay about $270 million for the airline, known as BMI. That topped a competing bid from Virgin Atlantic Airways. The purchase would give the group 56 additional daily take-off and landing slots at London's Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest, where it already controls 45 percent of the commercial air...

LONDON -- British Airways resumed hundreds of flights yesterday at one of the world's busiest airports, while pleading for continued patience from thousands of passengers stranded because of a ground-crew walkout. The airline said 420 of its 500 scheduled flights were taking off from London's Heathrow Airport -- 85 percent of its short-haul flights and 80 percent of its long-hauls. But with tens of thousands of passengers still backed up by a daylong strike that ended Friday, the airline said service would not reach normal levels for several more days.

LONDON — Thousands of travelers face disruptions in coming weeks now that the union representing British Airways cabin crews has won a landmark court ruling. The Unite union said workers would walk off the job, starting Monday, for a series of back-to-back strikes totaling 15 days if the union can’t agree with BA management on a resolution to a bitter dispute over pay and working conditions. BA said it was disappointed that Unite plans to go ahead with “its unjustified and pointless strikes.’’ The airline plans to fly about 70 percent of passengers booked to travel over...

LONDON — British Airways’ cabin-crew union may vote as early as next week on extending a strike that grounded flights for tens of thousands of Britons during one of the United Kingdom’s busiest holidays for air travel. The third day of the second phase of a walkout by flight attendants passed yesterday with no sign of a resolution to the dispute. British Airways canceled more than 200 flights from its main base at Heathrow Airport over the long weekend, according to the Unite union, which represents the carrier’s 12,000 cabin crew.

LONDON — A British Airways computer specialist was charged yesterday with plotting suicide bombings — including one he allegedly planned to carry out himself. Prosecutor Colin Gibbs alleged that Rajib Karim, a native of Bangladesh, deliberately took a job with the airline to further an unspecified terrorist conspiracy. Gibbs told the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the 30-year-old plotted over the past four years with unidentified contacts in his home country, Pakistan, and Yemen.

LONDON -- Lord King of Wartnaby, who helped guide British Airways from a state-owned carrier to a privatized airline, died yesterday at age 87, the company said. Born John Leonard King, he began his business career with a ball bearing company that expanded worldwide. The company was sold in 1968 and he became chairman of Babcock International in 1972. Lord King joined British Airways in 1981 as chairman when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher moved to privatize several state-owned industries.

PARIS - British Airways and the Spanish carrier Iberia beat out Virgin Atlantic yesterday in the bidding for British Midland International, the unprofitable airline being sold by Lufthansa of Germany. International Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, will pay about $270 million for the airline, known as BMI. That topped a competing bid from Virgin Atlantic Airways. The purchase would give the group 56 additional daily take-off and landing slots at London's Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest, where it already controls 45 percent of the...

NEW YORK - The German airline Lufthansa confirmed yesterday that Virgin Atlantic Airways has bid for its British Midland International unit, competing with the parent of British Airways to secure coveted takeoff and landing slots at Heathrow Airport. International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways and Iberia, had previously agreed to buy British Midland, known as BMI. "We are now talking to both IAG and Virgin," said Aage Dunhaupt, a spokesman for Lufthansa. Virgin Atlantic, owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Singapore Airlines, confirmed that negotiations were underway...

LONDON - A public sector strike in Britain next week threatens to paralyze operations at Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport. An estimated 2 million workers are expected to participate in a 24-hour walkout to protest changes in public sector pensions on Wednesday - billed as potentially the biggest union action since 1979. The lines at Heathrow's immigration counters are expected to be so long that passengers will need to be held on planes, and 12-hour delays for arriving passengers are likely, warned BAA, the airport's operator.

LONDON — The Christmas travel season turned angry and chaotic yesterday as British officials struggled to clear snow and ice that paralyzed rail and air links and spawned cancellations and delays that stranded thousands around the world. More than 48 hours after Britain’s last snowfall, some furious passengers with boarding passes for Monday flights were not even allowed into London’s Heathrow Airport. Inside, piles of garbage grew and some people slept on terminal floors.

The severe winter storms blanketing parts of Europe with snow and ice are having a ripple effect on local holiday travel this week as airlines cancel flights between London and Logan International Airport. All but a few of the 12 daily Logan and Heathrow Airport arrivals and departures were canceled Saturday and Sunday, and more were scrapped yesterday and today as severe weather conditions continue to hobble Europe’s busiest airport. American Airlines canceled its four daily flights between Boston and London yesterday and anticipated having just...

LONDON — American Airlines, British Airways, and Spain’s Iberia unveiled new routes and promised passengers better prices and flight flexibility as they launched an $8 billion transatlantic joint business yesterday. The trio are strengthening their existing oneworld alliance ties — but stopping short of a full financial merger because of strict US laws that bar foreign ownership in the industry — as many airlines struggle following the global financial crisis. The three carriers announced four new flight routes and codeshares on more than 2,600...

The title of Alain de Botton’s latest book concisely describes the subject of this brief work of nonfiction. The airport in question is Heathrow in London — specifically, Terminal 5 — and the week that the author spent there was at the invitation of the airport’s owner, BAA, which wanted to showcase the new terminal. Thus, for “A Week at the Airport’’ London-based de Botton became an employee of BAA, which he refers to at one point as his “patron.’’ He could write about anything in the terminal; he was even given “explicit...

LONDON — British Airways and the union representing its cabin crew were no closer to resolving a dispute over pay and conditions yesterday as a strike that has grounded thousands of flights entered its third — and busiest — day. Operations at the airline were put under more strain than over the weekend as there are far more flights packed into normal scheduling. The airline said it operated 273, or 78 percent, of its long-haul flights and 442, or 50 percent, of its short-haul flights over the first two days of the strikes.

LONDON — British Airways’ cabin-crew union may vote as early as next week on extending a strike that grounded flights for tens of thousands of Britons during one of the United Kingdom’s busiest holidays for air travel. The third day of the second phase of a walkout by flight attendants passed yesterday with no sign of a resolution to the dispute. British Airways canceled more than 200 flights from its main base at Heathrow Airport over the long weekend, according to the Unite union, which represents the carrier’s 12,000 cabin crew.