Eco-zealots are secretly plotting to secure key jobs at major airports and storm runways to unleash an unprecedented summer of holiday hell around the world, a Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered.
They plan to get work with airlines and handling firms in what security experts are warning is a major threat to the safety of passengers at one of the busiest times of the year.
The aim is to rush runways and even planes – and take advantage of tight flight schedules to sabotage global air travel and wreak the maximum misery possible.
Just Stop Oil (JSO) and its sister campaign groups overseas are organising a coordinated international campaign to cause ‘mayhem’ from mid-July, just as schools break up and families prepare to jet off for a badly needed break.
The Mail on Sunday exposed an initial plan to target British airports last month, revealing activists’ plans to cut through fences, glue themselves to the runway, cycle on runways, and stage sit-ins at terminals to obstruct passenger access. Now, we can expose their new plot – and its worldwide dimensions, tapping into activists’ groups in at least eight other nations.
Just Stop Oil (JSO) and its sister campaign groups overseas are organising a coordinated international campaign to cause ‘mayhem’ from mid-July, just as schools break up and families prepare to jet off for a badly needed break
Phoebe Plummer (pictured), the privately school educated JSO poster girl, warned: ‘We’re talking about international disruption on a scale that has never been seen before’
Departures at Heathrow Terminal five. The Airport Operators Association, the trade body for UK airports, have called on environmental groups to work with the industry ‘instead of engaging in damaging and disruptive stunts like this’ (stock image)
Our undercover reporter was told of the blueprint at a meeting of activists in London yesterday. One activist, Nick from Italy, said the scheme involved trying to get airside jobs. Asked how easy it would be, he replied: ‘Depends on the airport.’ He confirmed Heathrow was top of their hit list.
At another meeting on Thursday night, Phoebe Plummer, the privately school educated JSO poster girl, warned: ‘We’re talking about international disruption on a scale that has never been seen before.’ She told a Roads to Runways JSO meeting in London that the ‘super exciting plan’ would also involve activist groups in Norway, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden, Canada, Austria and Switzerland, collectively called the A22 Network.
To cheers from fellow activists, she said: ‘Some of these campaigns in the A22 Network are going to be taking action at the major airports in their cities at the very same time that we are. She said that because ‘flights operate on such a tight schedule’, it meant synchronised disruption in ‘cities all around the world’ would paralyse air travel.
Another activist told the same meeting: ‘It’s all about disrupting airports. It will be people inside the airport, trying to get on the runway, trying to board planes, cause problems on planes.
‘It could be multifaceted. As soon as they get into the compound, they have to close the runway.
‘For every minute we’re on the runway or in the compound where the airplane is, for every minute where there’s someone there, they can’t move the planes. [They] have to change all the flights and everything. It will cause mayhem.’
Philip Ingram MBE, a security and intelligence specialist, said: ‘This sort of activity is turning eco-zealots into eco-terrorists endangering not only their lives but the lives of hundreds of passengers.
‘The potential disruption this would cause is nothing compared to the potential danger to life. When groups put lives at risk for their cause that in my books is simply terrorism.’
The Airport Operators Association, the trade body for UK airports, have called on environmental groups to work with the industry ‘instead of engaging in damaging and disruptive stunts like this’.
