[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Continental Club

It is a brave person who argues that a company making a pre tax profit of £1Bn needs to charge more, to justify an investment in the range of tens of millions.

The EC seems to agree http://www.news24.com/World/News/EU-blasts-unacceptable-airport-chaos-20101221

However, it is not just Heathrow – Brussels ran out of de-icing fluid, but I have to say it does not surprise me – I worked in Belgium for 5 years and it was more inefficient than the UK in my personal experience.

[continentalclub]

Brave?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23808340-recession-knocks-baa-to-pound-821m-loss.do

With annual losses of £821m and net debt of £8.6bn at BAA, and overall an Eu92.4m loss at Ferrovial Group level, I’m not sure where the £1bn profit that you mention is coming from?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a1ff9348-2072-11df-bf2d-00144feab49a.html#axzz18lTlsISs

Brussels Airport ran out of fluid because it is normally delivered from France, where road conditions rendered tanker traffic immobile.

The airport operator was, however, reasonably quickly able to source supplied from Northern Germany and have them delivered while their French supplies remained stuck.

[FlyingChinaman]

Upgrading an existing infra-structure is very expensive, be it Heathrow, UK train network system etc.

I guess beggers can’t be chooser as there is not enough available investment money around at the moment and the travelling publics just have to accept this is legacy from years of under investments to many of the UK transport infra-structures.

May be people will get used to it !!!!

[continentalclub]

Heathrow is now reporting that it plans to be operating at full capacity from tomorrow (Wednesday), although the flying schedule will of course be compromised by the out of position aircraft, passengers and crew.

The Department for Transport and Ministry of Defence have also agreed to deploy the armed forces for snow-clearing at Heathrow in the event of future need.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

continental club

My reference is “The company, which is expected to announce pre-tax profits of nearly £1? billion this year, spent just £500,000 on equipment to deal with snow and ice. “

You can find this at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8216794/UK-snow-rail-passengers-endure-travel-misery-as-Heathrow-fiasco-enters-fifth-day.html

Scroll down to the penultimate paragraph.

Did BAA write off a large sum against the sale of LGW?

Might that explain the difference – pre tax profit versus net proft?

“Brussels Airport ran out of fluid because it is normally delivered from France, where road conditions rendered tanker traffic immobile.”

That suggests to me that they were not holding enough. The message needs to get through that the very mild winters of the last 20 years are no longer a good basis for contingency planning.

[FlyingChinaman]

Continentalclub: Good to hear this great news as I am sure many stranded travellers welcome such information but whether they will be able to get to their final destination in time for the holidays is questionable.

The deployment of the armed forces to help out Heathrow in the period of national crisis MIGHT just be a simplier and a short-term solution in view of the tight investment situation right now!

Just hope the authority will come forward for the assistance faster the next time round.

[MarcusUK]

Radio 4 have reported that The Prime Minister contacted BAA, and suggested the army be brought in to clear the runways.

Amazingly, extra crews and a sudden renewed effort was being made as he put it “As i speak” in The House The Commons.
The runway being announced by BAA to be closed until Christmas day, is to be suddenly cleared and be re-opened b y 6pm this eve?

Damaging to BAA to say the least and the inadequate CEO’s appearance on the Channel 4 Live news.
With no snow since Saturday and then only 10cm, perhaps the army should be called in to clear the runways, if the current Management are incapable. They should then send the bill to BAA!

Shame it takes the personal threat of the PM and calling in of the Army to clear our most important travel gateway to the world. What a National image to send out…

This is not a blame game. It is Accountability.
The lack of any basically measured response, when compared side by side to other airports around the world, many who had this weather 2 days prior to us, is atrocious.
LHR has regularly become an International damaging image to the UK, and it needs to be altered.

[Bullfrog]

@MarcusUK

“Spot on” … ‘accountability’ is what lacks in the UK.

[FrequentTraveller]

continentalclub : “…Heathrow is now reporting that it plans to be operating at full capacity from tomorrow (Wednesday), …”

I am not suggesting you are wrong, I am interested as to where that information came from. As of now http://www.heathrowairport.com/ states “Heathrow is operating around one third of a normal flight schedule until 06:00 on Thursday 23 December.”

[CallMeIshmael]

Fines and a regulator will focus the mind of BAA and other Airport Operators.

A similar situation impacted Gas and Electricity supply with power interrupts lasting days in adverse weather conditions before being fixed. Ofgem implemented a scale of fines on the DNO (Distribution Network Operators) based on length of interruption of service and number of households impacted. Every minute power was down incurred penalties.

The fines, frequently topping £10million per annum, have focussed the minds of the DNOs to implement sophisticated network monitoring which will not only identify an interruption and exact location immediately but also kick in alternative routing where possible. This will significantly reduce interruptions… and fines!

LHR spent £500k on snow equipment this year with 50 snow specialists, LGW spent £1million on snow equipment and has 120 snow specialists.

What has been the cost incurred to airlines and to passengers?

[continentalclub]

FrequentTraveller the capacity quote came from Heathrow’s Twitter feed:

http://twitter.com/heathrowairport

It looks as though it may have been removed though, and replaced with:

# UPDATE: Both runways now open but it is extremely important not to travel to the airport unless you have a confirmed booking. about 2 hours ago via HootSuite

# UPDATE: Our Sth runway is now open but airlines still operating reduced schedule as they move diverted aircraft & crew back into position. about 2 hours ago via HootSuite

– possibly because some people reading will not have understood that full capacity does not mean full schedule, for the reasons that I caveated in the post above.

[Binman62]

ok now home. Following last post was boarded onto flight and then sat on tarmac for almost 5 hours on Monday being promised a takeoff slot of 5.30pm. At 5pm BA cancelled flight. It was extraordinary decision and a very cruel way to treat the many who were on board.
Rebooked only after a near riot at ticket desk when a decision was taken locally not to rebook anyone on anything. Offered hotel and meals but in the end due to my complete lack of faith in BA to deliver any truthful iinformation did what was suggested by those not affected by this farce and used my resources and resourfulnes and got home via Train car ferry and taxi. Over a £1000 in extra costs. O arrival find 2 inches of snow and a nation paralysed. In Europe they are measuring snow in feet and bar some minor disruption roads are clear trains run and airports operating at higher capacity than LHR. To hear also that help in the form of the army was refused beggars belief.
BA fell apart on Friday operationally after just 20 mins of forecast snow and that was their fault for not planning. The consequences of their awful decision making and planning have now affected thousands since and have been compounded by a retailer running airports.
It is a national disgrace and people should be rightly blamed and held to account.

[SimonS1]

Just back from 2 days in Frankfurt airport watching flights taking off and landing much as normal. A big chunk of the 25% of flights cancelled there were flights that never left the UK. In the end we gave up on BA and took the overnight bus back from Frankfurt. Most of the people there are having a chuckle at our expense as BAA prove how not to run an airport. Most of the press appearances by the CEO of BAA were about excuses and buck passing and surely Mr Matthews should be considering his position, not least as it appears today hat his annual bonus is more than the £500K Heathrow have spent on snow related equipment.

[CallMeIshmael]

It would be good to see Philip Hammond (Transport Minister) and Julia Simpson (BA Head of Communications) follow Colin Matthews’ (Heathrow’s CEO) pressured lead with similar acts of contrition.

[VintageKrug]

Willie’s already at the forefront of this, innovating and using new channels to apologise directly to customers:

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/weather-disruption/public/en_gb

A real feather in the BA Comms dept’s cap for using this medium, and also to BA.com for having the resilience to keep going at a time of great strain on the website.

These sorts of direct communications are another reason he is worth every penny of his £743,000 salary.

[Author]

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