Business travellers heading to or through Scotland this summer face the prospect of significant disruption after Unite confirmed that around 900 workers at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports are moving towards co-ordinated strike action in a series of pay disputes.
A wave of industrial action ballots opens this week, with the union targeting some of the busiest weeks of the travel calendar, a period that will coincide with the football World Cup and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, when corporate travel demand into Scotland is expected to peak.
At Edinburgh, roughly 500 Unite members employed by Edinburgh Airport Limited and ground handler Menzies Aviation are being balloted. The Edinburgh Airport Limited cohort, numbering around 370, includes airport ambassadors, airside support officers, engineers and managers, frontline staff whose absence would be acutely felt by business travellers passing through Scotland’s busiest hub. The company posted profits of £144.4m for the year ending 2024, up from £88.2m a year earlier.
A further 280 ground services crew at Menzies Aviation across Edinburgh and Glasgow, among them dispatchers, allocators, airside agents and controllers, have rejected what the union has described as unacceptable pay offers. Menzies handles turnarounds for a roster of carriers central to the corporate travel market, including British Airways, American Airlines, United, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Lufthansa, Loganair and Air Transat. The handler recently reported record 2025 global revenues of $3bn (£2.4bn).
In Aberdeen, around 70 security workers employed by ICTS are also being balloted over what Unite has called an inadequate pay offer. They join roughly 170 ICTS colleagues at Glasgow, taking the total number of ICTS staff on the brink of action across the two airports to around 240. These employees process passengers through the security search areas, a chokepoint that, if affected, would have an immediate and visible impact on departures. ICTS (UK) Limited’s most recent accounts, filed with Companies House last month, show profits rising to £7.6m in 2025 from £4.4m the previous year.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham did not mince her words. “Hundreds of workers across Scotland’s largest airports are heading towards summer strike action,” she said. “The companies involved are all highly profitable. They can easily afford to give our members fair and reasonable pay offers but have decided to put boosting profits before people.”
Carrie Donoghue, Unite’s industrial officer for the sector, warned that the consequences for travellers would be severe if the disputes were not resolved. “Any strike action would ground planes and passengers during an expectedly busy period with the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games,” she said. “The blame for this situation arising will lie entirely with these extremely wealthy companies. They can end these disputes immediately, and in doing so they can give the travelling public peace of mind.”
For corporate travel buyers and travel management companies, the timing could hardly be worse. With sporting demand stacking on top of the traditional summer leisure peak, capacity into Scottish airports is already tight, and any walkouts by ground handling, engineering or security staff would be likely to trigger cancellations and lengthy queues at precisely the moment business travellers are competing with sports fans for seats and stand. Buyers are likely to want to review duty-of-care arrangements, build flexibility into August itineraries and keep a close eye on the ballot results in the coming weeks.