Easy opening packaging article made from heat-shrinkable film exhibiting directional tear

A heat-shrinkable packaging article has one or more tear initiators for initiating a manual tear that can be propagated to open a package and allow a product to be readily removed therefrom, without the use of a knife or scissors or any other implement. The tear initiators are present in a skirt and/or header of the article. The skirt and/or header has a first side and a second side. In one embodiment, some or all of the first side of the skirt and/or header can be heatset in order to reduce the shrink and curling of the skirt and/or header. This improves identification and utilization of the tear initiators by a consumer upon shrinking the packaging article around the product. In another embodiment, the skirt and/or header has a plurality of pairs of tear initiators to allow portions of the package to be torn off to expose a portion of the product that can then be sliced off while the remainder of the packaged product remains covered by a remainder of the film.