BA blamed for passenger misery

28th December 2010

BAA may be fined for travel chaos

Phillip Hammond the UK Transport Secretary is seeking greater powers to apply economic sanctions to fine BAA the operators of Heathrow. For most of the week running up to Christmas thousands of flights were cancelled causing travel chaos and misery for passengers.

The affect of the operator to deal with the snow and ice has massive financial implications for airport parking companies, hotels close to the airport, destination hotels, airport retailers and the city of London because incoming passengers were unable to land.

Many travellers never even left home and no doubt will be looking to insurance companies for recompense who will equally fall back on an act of god.

Whichever way you look at it Heathrow failed in spectacular fashion to deal with a situation that northern European airports in Scandinavia deal with as a matter of course.

Current legislation allows the CAA to apply a 7 per cent airport to charge of around 63 million and if this applied will put pressure on BAA management. In response they have promised to invest £15 million to increase the number of snow ploughs and liquids needed to de-ice aircraft.