Thousands of passengers were stranded for a second day at Britain's busiest airport on Friday as wildcat strikes forced British Airways to cancel its flights during the peak summer travel season.
British Airways (BA) said it would not operate any flights at London's Heathrow Airport until at least 1900 GMT but did not elaborate on how the strikes by baggage handlers and other ground staff would be overcome.
BA has now cancelled around 535 of Friday's flights, on top of the 121 cancelled on Thursday when the strike action started.
"Our message to customers is don't come to the airport today," spokesman Richard Goodfellow said. "We're very sorry and doing all we can to look after customers at Heathrow."
BA said about 1,000 of its baggage handlers, bus drivers and other staff stopped work on Thursday in support of hundreds of workers sacked this week by a catering firm that provides the airline's in-flight meals.
Other airlines faced knock-on disruption at Heathrow. Australia's Qantas, Finnish national carrier Finnair, Sri Lankan Airlines, GB Airlines and British Mediterranean Airlines were affected.
"There is clearly going to be significant disruption today and probably for several days to come," Nick Temple, the managing director of Heathrow Airport, told BBC Radio.
BA said it was talking to its staff, but it was too early to say whether formal talks would be held with trade unions.
"Our main priority is to get our staff working, and that is what we are seeking to do," Goodfellow said.
Unions said check-in staff went home after suffering abuse from angry passengers.
"I would like to apologize unreservedly to our customers," BA Chief Executive Rod Eddington said in a statement. "Nearly 100 of our aircraft and 1,000 pilots and cabin crew are in the wrong places (because of the strikes)."
Eddington called on the Transport and General Workers' Union and managers of the Gate Gourmet UK catering firm to resolve the dispute and "end this misery for our customers".
But negotiations between the two sides ended in failure on Thursday and it was unclear what would happen next.
BA said some 20,000 passengers already stranded should go home or find rooms in packed hotels round the airport.
Hundreds of passengers tried to sleep on the floor at Heathrow's Terminal 4, while many more were left outside after staff closed the doors to prevent overcrowding. The airline said it had booked "a few thousand" hotel rooms for passengers.
BA's relations with staff have been strained since the airline axed thousands of jobs in an industry downturn that followed the September 2001 attacks in the United States.
It suffered unofficial strikes in mid-2003 in a row over working conditions and narrowly fended off strikes last year after securing a pay deal with ground staff.
As the chaos grew on Thursday, airline staff handed out free bottles of water to passengers on a hot summer's day and engineers erected large marquees on Terminal 4's forecourt so people would have somewhere to shelter.
"There is every indication that it is going to get worse before it gets better," said Ian Thompson, 51, due to fly to Los Angeles with his wife Carol, 49. "At the moment we have no idea when we might get away."
In New York, BA spokesman John Lampl said passengers were being rescheduled or placed on flights operated by other carriers. "We will have to wait and see what is going to happen," he said.
The chaos was triggered by a long-running industrial dispute between the Transport and General Workers' Union and Gate Gourmet UK, part of a global group with headquarters in Zurich and Reston, Virginia.
Unions said Gate Gourmet staff walked out in protest at planned changes to pay and conditions. The company said its proposed reforms were needed to safeguard its future.
"If we don't change, the company will not survive," Gate Gourmet's managing director Eric Born said in a statement.
He said the company had not made a profit since 2000 and would lose GBP£25 million (USD$45.09 million) this year without restructuring.
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