Activists 'plan to cause chaos at Heathrow Terminal 5'
24.10.07
Environmental activists are planning to disrupt hundreds of flights by blockading key areas in Heathrow Airport's giant new terminal when it opens in the spring, the Times newspaper has reported. It claims that 'hundreds' of supporters of Plane Stupid, the anti-aviation direct action group, have infiltrated passenger trials taking place over the next three months at Terminal 5.
BAA is recruiting 15,000 volunteers to take part in 100 trials of the giant new terminal before it opens next March. The trials began this month with the biggest, due to take place in December, involving 2,000 volunteers.
Plane Stupid has a link on its website to the BAA volunteer registration page. A member of the group told the newspaper: 'We have managed to get hundreds of our supporters registered as volunteers and they will be checking out the terminal because we consider it to be the number one target for direct action.' He said that the group was considering protests, including a demonstration during or soon after the opening of the terminal.
Whether this is an exaggeration, time will tell. However, the newspaper does say in its report that Plane Stupid ' organised the “climate camp” that blockaded BAA’s offices at Heathrow in August,' when they neither organised the camp - a coalition of groups opposed to Heathrow and to the expansion of the aviation industry did - and they did not blockade BAA's offices, they only managed to spend a cold night in the office's car park.
The article also claims that the 'group that caused chaos by occupying a taxiway at East Midlands airport last year,' when in fact they caused minimal disruption, with no flights cancelled and no significant delays.
To date the largest Plane Stupid demonstration we have reported on had 12 protesters. Unless they have carried out a massive recruitment drive, we would be surprised if they have the 'hundreds of members' that the article suggests.
Interestingly, perhaps unbelievably, the newspaper also reports that both the aviation industry and the environmental group have spied on each other in an attempt to gain intelligence on rival plans and tactics. It says that people working for FlyingMatters, a lobby group funded by BAA, have contacted Plane Stupid posing as environmentalists interested in supporting their action. Meanwhile, activists working for Plane Stupid have tried to glean information about the activities of FlyingMatters by ringing its offices and pretending to be journalists! All sounds like fun doesn't it?!
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