LONDON, Aug. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- A strike at London's largest airport, Heathrow, which left up to 70,000 passengers stranded is nearing its end with two-third of the strikers starting to resume work on Friday afternoon, according to the Sky News television.

    However, no flights are expected to take off or land at the Heathrow Airport before 8 pm Friday at the earliest, while a meeting is underway between the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) and Gate Gourmet in an effort to break the deadlock.

    The British Airways (BA) canceled all its flights in and out of the Heathrow Airport as several hundred baggage handlers, loaders, cargo staff and other workers at the airport started a strike Thursday afternoon in support of 800 employees sacked by the US firm Gate Gourmet, which supplies catering for BA.

    British Airways has pledged to rebook or refund all the passengers caught up in the crisis, which has also spread to a number of other airlines including Australian carrier Qantas, Finnair and Sri Lankan Airways and other airlines which use the same baggage handlers.

    BA put up about 4,000 passengers in hotels on Thursday night but hundreds more were forced to sleep in the terminals after some 500 flights have had to be canceled.

    "I urge the management of Gate Gourmet and senior TGWU officials to find a speedy resolution to this crisis and end the misery they are heaping on our customers," BA's Chief Executive Rod Eddington was quoted by the Sky News as saying.

    "Equally, those members of the TGWU employed by British Airways must end their crippling unofficial action in support of the Gate Gourmet dispute," he said, adding "This is not our dispute, our customers must come first and everyone involved in creating this chaotic situation must come to their senses."

    BA operates around 550 flights a day at Heathrow at this time of year, traditionally one of the busiest weeks for the airline industry. Enditem