strike by the airline's baggage handlers and cabin crews.

BA's flight this evening is expected to arrive and depart on schedule, one day after the 17,000-strong Transport and General Workers Union launched a 24 hour strike from midnight Thursday.

Local BA officials yesterday said the airline's Thursday night flight from Bermuda landed on schedule yesterday morning at Gatwick Airport, where the strike had a devastating effect on the airline's schedule.

Thousands of customers were stranded during the strike, but the Bermuda connection appears to have escaped without serious impact despite fears Thursday's flight would be diverted to Stanstead, northeast of London.

The union has accepted management assurances on pay and job security, but BA faces more trouble with pilots who have authorised a strike over the airline's plans to transfer some flights into a lower-wage subsidiary.

BA said operations would return to normal today at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports.

Yesterday, airports were packed with people whose vacation plans had turned into a nightmare of canceled flights, long lines and uncertainty.

Some passengers heading to continental Europe got there by taking trains to the coast, then crossing the English Channel by ferry.

Others tried their luck with other airlines, giving a one-day windfall to rival airlines including American, United and Delta, as well as the many European carriers serving London.

British Airways, embarking on an aggressive global expansion plan, stirred the labor troubles with its purchase late last year of rival Dan-Air, a British carrier specializing in European short-haul flights that was about to go bust.

Unions agreed that Dan-Air workers, based at Gatwick, could continue to be paid less than regular British Airways employees, by going on the payroll in a subsidiary that pays about 30 percent lower wages.

British Airways then made workers nervous with a move to shift its other short-haul European flights from Gatwick into the cheaper subsidiary, saying it needs to stem losses in the operations.

The unions feared this was the beginning of an attack on wages and job security throughout the company, although British Airways said no current workers would be forced to take pay cuts.

BA placated the workers by providing written assurances about their pay and job security.

Shop stewards and union representatives met Friday and concluded that "the package BA put forward last night is sufficient for a basis to work on in the future,'' said George Ryde, the union's national secretary for aviation.

"We are obviously pleased at the result and all our efforts now will be concentrated on getting back to a full operation as quickly as possible tomorrow.'' But the British Air Line Pilots Association, with a much stronger strike vote from its rank and file, says it will demand a systemwide contract for all pilots. The union says it will be flexible about lower pay for short-haul pilots based out of Gatwick but wants everyone flying for British Airways to be covered by one contract.

British Airways has balked at this suggestion but the pilots insist they will not give up.