Baggage handlers and check-in staff at Gatwick and other airports were today voting on a new pay offer aimed at averting summer travel chaos.

Around 1,500 members of the GMB union, mainly based at Gatwick and Heathrow, will consider a deal worth 1.8 per cent and a lump sum payment of £250.

Their employer, Aviance, increased the offer from 1.5 per cent and £150 after the workers voted by nine to one in favour of industrial action.

Ed Blisset, the union's senior organiser, said today: "We are disappointed that the company has not been able to make a substantial increase that we could have recommended to our members."

Union sources believe the voting, which will take around a week, will be close.

Feelings on pay were said to be running high among the workers, who deal with check-in and baggage handling for some airlines.

The union has threatened a series of one-day strikes if the dispute is not settled. That would cause huge disruption at airports during the busy month of August.

British Airways, Gatwick's main carrier, says its flights would not be affected because it maintains its own ground staff.

A spokesman for Aviance said the company was hopeful that the improved offer would be accepted.

Aviance said most of the GMB members involved in the dispute were based at Gatwick.