Talks are to be held in an effort to prevent a series of crippling Christmas-time strikes at some of Britain's biggest airports.

Officials from the Transport and General Workers Union (T&G) want a bigger pay offer from BAA - which owns seven airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Strikes have been called starting on November 28.

They would also take in four dates in December, including the day before Christmas Eve - traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the period - as well as for 2 January, impacting on New Year travel.

Tim Lyle, T&G national secretary for civil aviation, said negotiations would take place on Wednesday (20 November).

He said: "The T&G has agreed to accept the invitation for talks at Acas.

"We hope the talks will be productive and fruitful."

Strike Dates

28 November 2 December 10 December 15 December 23 December 2 January

Last year, the British Airport Authority (BAA) estimated around 1.1m people travelled on the weekend of 21-24 December last year, out of a total of about 8m for the month as a whole.

BAA is hopeful of reaching an agreement with unions but is looking at contingency plans to ensure airports do not grind to a halt.

These could include redeploying people from office jobs into security posts.

Despite this, however, the threat of total closure remains real.

BBC transport correspondent Tom Symonds said a series of one-day strikes would cause chaos.

He said any walkout could make normal operations impossible.

BAA has offered a 6. 3% rise in pay over the next two years - the T&G says its not enough.

BAA made more than �350m in profits in the last six months, and the union says airport staff have been working much harder in the last year because of heightened security following September 11.

The talks are due to be held at an undisclosed hotel near to Heathrow.