BAA You Should Hang Your Heads In Shame

Yes you BAA !!!

The appalling chaos that Heathrow, this countries premiere airport, is experiencing is down to your poor management through this extreme weather. Yes it may be an unusual experience but it’s not as if you didn’t have any warning. And this is the 3rd time in 12 months that we have experienced extreme weather conditions.

It’s taken you 4 days to get the 2nd runway open. Even allowing for the huge amount of snowfall this amounts to total incompetence. You were offered help to get Heathrow cleared. Whilst some clearing activities may require specialist knowledge and specialised equipment but the sheer volume of snow required basic grunt which could have been supplied by the troops. So why did BAA not accept the governments offer of troops to help clear the runways at Heathrow ?

Also why is it that Gatwick, a smaller airport, has invested more (£1m) in equipment to deal with snow than Heathrow (£500,000) and has plans to invest much more. Gatwick plans £7m investment next year whilst Heathrow is planning to spend just £3m over the next four years. Does this show the BAA as a forward thinking organisation. I don’t think so. Obviously Gatwick are using a different oracle to BAA.

And as for the human element. BAA may shrug their shoulders and say that the responsibility for the passengers is down to individual carriers but lets not forget the root cause here. BAA failed to keep the airport operational. Therefore the airlines were unable to fly their planes in and out which in turn means that hundreds of thousands of passengers are left stranded. I feel for the passengers whose biggest gripe seems to be the lack of communication. I have personally experienced the way in which the airline industry handles this when one or two planes are delayed. The blatant lies, the lies by omission and the misinformation. I am sure that over the last week this has been magnified a thousand fold.

Folks you have my sympathy. Whichever way you look at it BAA have let you down and they have let this country down.

Have just heard claims that the BAA didn’t stock up on enough de-icer and there are calls for Colin Matthews to relinquish his “6 figure” bonus. It just gets more bizarre.