[Anonymous]

[VintageKrug]

Should the airlines sue BAA plc for compensation for their lack of preparedness in the recent weather events at LHR?

I think we all recognised that recent temperatures and heavy snowfall in a short space of time over one of the busiest weekends on an airfield at capacity and without additional land to park planes up until the weather improved was bound to create some significant disruption.

But at the same time, it has take literally days to re-open both runways, and stands were barely touched as there simply wasn’t the kit available to remove snow from these areas.

BAA said it spend £500,000 on new snow kit for this season, but for an airport of such size, this is barely replacement level of investment and pales into insignificance when set against the £1bn++ profit Ferrovial made from its BAA ownership last year. £500,000 was used to purchase two – yes just TWO – snow ploughs.

For a useful benchmark, the new owners of Gatwick recently invested £8m in snow clearing equipment, an this appears largely the reason LGW was able to open and recover from inevitable disruption faster than LHR.

Should airlines (and individuals) sue BAA plc for incompetence?

[StephenLondon]

It is all fine and well for an airline to sue BAA, since they can add the remunerations to their bottom line. How far will a lawsuit go, however, towards repairing the damage done to individuals who have missed weddings, birthdays or other events that have a one-off timing that is more emotional rather than financial? These are the people who, regardless of recompense, will always have missed the event for which money cannot replace the moment.

What should happen is a serious look at the way BAA attempt to manage LHR. There have been numerous calls for heads to roll – Colin Matthews as well as Philip Hammond. I, for one, don’t disagree with these calls. These are the people responsible for planning and running an effective business. And they have been slow to prepare, slow to react and downright negligent towards the travelling public. They need to find other jobs with different responsibilities, as clearly they are in over their heads in their current positions.

Heathrow needs to plan and spend money to be able to cope with snow. It clearly is no longer the “once every two decade” phenomenon. Bring in the Swedes running Arlanda Airport, and learn how to operate in snow once and for all. Pay for it. Lord knows we pay enough in departure taxes to cover such plans.

Furthermore, if LHR runs at 98% of capacity on a good day, surely that shows the need for a third and fourth runway and additional terminal facilities. How the UK Gov’t can even contemplate £12 Billion on a railway to get people to Birmingham 11 minutes faster whilst ignoring a HUGE employment base, tax base and (mostly) successful business which is LHR is just shocking, to say the least.

Action should be taken NOW, whilst this chaos is fresh in everyone’s mind, rather than brushing it all under the carpet and tittering.

[Tim2soza]

StephenLondon – It won’t be £12bn by the time it is finished. Successive UK Govt’s have demonstrated a total inability to manage infrastructure projects. Read the Private Eye this fortnight to learn about the £900 Christmas tree under PFI!

[FlyingChinaman]

StephenLondon: I full support your comments that something CONCRETE must be done to combat this type of weather related problem and not just pushing it aside by saying it’s an once in a blue moon occurrence.

The world busiest international airport has the responsibility to provide a reliable infra-structure to the passengers using it’s facilities in all conditions. At least knows how and be prepared to recover from adverse weather conditions fast!

[VintageKrug]

I agree with you FlyingChinaman, but naturally any operation must balance the cost of preparedness with its likelihood.

It is my belief that BAA plc (and to a lesser extent other airlines) haven’t got this balance right at present.

What is clear is that the best thing to do at present in such circumstances is to avoid people coming to the airport if at possible, by giving very clear forecasts about the operational capability of the airfield, and vary the flying programme accordingly.

Unfortunately, hysterical calls for “action NOW” are rather pointless as such things require many months to put in place.

[FlyingChinaman]

VK: I fully agree that major improvements take time and be only be done in stages but the whole idea is have plan in doing it and commencing the upgrading as soon as possible. Insufficient investments can not be an excuse as project can be big or smaller but at least it is moving towards a right direction

Airlines such as Cathay Pacific is using Manchester (on a very limited basis) to fly some of their stranded passengers (for unaccompanied minors, young students, passengers needing special assistance only) . It shows that there are many creative ways of solving the crisis by using viable alternative of existing facilities. Something that should be look at by the authority.

[JordanD]

Actually, VK, there’s a large factual inaccuracy in your first post, so let’s get that right off the bat: Gatwick invested only £1m in the last year on snow related equipment; they have another £7m earmarked for investment, but have not done so yet. (Source: BBC Ten O’Clock News, Tuesday 21 Dec).

Irony perhaps that you laude Gatwick, when two weeks back it was closed completely for 48hrs.

[VintageKrug]

I don’t “laud Gatwick”. Laud means “to praise” and I have simply stated facts on here as a comparison to LHR.

Indeed, in another thread I noted that LGW and LHR are very different operationally, with LGW not experiencing the same capacity issues to the extent LHR does.

But the facts are that LGW has recovered more rapidly than LHR, and I think that might partially be to do with it not being a BAA airport any longer.

Linked below is my source for the £8m; that investment is committed, although you are correct to state that the full realisation in terms of plant on the ground is not yet fully in place, but it is being delivered at present with three plows which were part of that commitment delivered this weekend.

It is still a considerably larger commitment than LHR, which is in turn a much larger more complex airport, where BAA’s Colin Matthews has the gall to state their “may well be” a case for more investment in snow equipment, having reduced spend from £1.5m last year to just £500,000 this year.

http://www.abtn.co.uk/news/2015119-heathrow-%E2%80%9Cincompetence%E2%80%9D-staggers-airlines

The Channel 4 source states very clearly that Gatwick’s £8m investment was “this year”:

http://www.channel4.com/news/heathrow-cut-snow-defence-spend-by-two-thirds

[Cedric_Statherby]

There appear to be two threads going on the snow at Heathrow (one more than the number of runways going for most of the last few days!) so please excuse me if I repeat myself and you have read this elsewhere. But with respect, I think the argument that “we cannot expect BAA to prepare in advance for such extreme weather” – which is trotted out with religious enthusiasm by BAA’s spokespeople and apologists – needs to be challenged.

The argument hinges on three factors 1) the frequency of the extreme weather 2) the cost of the disruption if the preventative action is not taken 3) the cost of the preventative action

BAA’s defence relies on everyone assuming that the answers to these are 1) very infrequent 2) not very high 3) very high. I would argue that all three of these assumptions are wrong.

On the first, the number of days of snow delays seems to be increasing, and as this is the third winter running where we have had this snow it is no longer defensible to claim it is a “once in 30 years event”. On the second, the cost of the disruption is simply huge – if you add together working time lost, business lost, personal costs, plans disrupted and the damage tto the UK’s reputation, I would not be surprised if an economist could not find a figure of hundreds of millions of pounds. And on the last – the cost to BAA of preventative measures – they are very carefully completely silent, but I doubt it runs to £10 million.

So I dispute the standard argument that it is not worth spending money to forestall this chaos next time. We have an event which looks like happening much more regularly, costs a fortune to the country every time, and can be prevented at a fraction of the cost. Indeed, taking the economy as a whole, any money BAA had spent before the last few days’ disruption would probably have been paid back in this snow event alone!

The rub is though that the cost is to BAA, and the benefit is to passengers, citizens, taxpayers and the country as a whole. So BAA, being a selfish profit-maximising company, will not spend the money unless forced to. Perhaps a fine of £100,000 for every plane which did not fly might persuade them?

[Binman62]

Yes they should. And as a resut EU compensation at the appropriate level should be paid to all passengers affected as this was clearly a event within the control of airlines who should have planned and communicated much better.
As for extreme weather…….this is what makes me laugh…this was not extreme…….it snows in winter and has done all of my life. It was a single event on Friday lasting 30mins and only about 2 inches, not Chicago style snow dumps. Saturday was 5 inches in an hour but it is was forecast. If it snows from now till February then that might be considered extreme. But not to be able to open a runway for 4 days after such snowfall is simply incompetance.

[VintageKrug]

Airlines do not run the airport. Snow is most certainly not within the control of either the airlines or the airport operators. Please don’t confuse the issue.

And this was exceptional weather – most particularly in terms of the low temperatures reached, whcih were the lowest I had experienced in the UK for decades.

I think you’re right that some better regulation should be put in place force BAA to invest more in snow preparadness.

But my argument was more subtle than your assessment.

More money does need to be invested, but BAA failed at investing at the very minimum required; it simply could not meet a reasonable expectation that within 12 hours of snowfall, 50% of stands would be clear of snow and at least one runway would be operational.

Against a worsening trend of weather events, it actually reduced investment rather than increased it.

To expect BAA to invest to the level that both runways and 100% of stands would be snow-clear after 12 hours would be excessive.

So while I agree with the thrust of what you are saying, Cedric, I think it should be tempered with economic realism, and also accept that having a better snow capability would perhaps lead to – for instance – a year-round increase in the number of bussed flights. The “opportunity cost” of investment in new gates and terminals being diverted elsewhere.

It doesn’t seem unreasonable to have a better SLA in place to deal with disruption, and the calculated capacity to deal with something like 2-4 inches of snow within a twelve hour period such that most flights can operate, and be fully operational within 24 hours.

But investment to the level seen at other European airports where snow is a common occurrence simply isn’t realistic, and nor does it change the fact that much of the disruption was caused by the fact that while one runway was open a day or so after the snowfall, flights simply couldn’t land as the stand were full up, and no flights could leave because BAA didn’t have the equipment to clear the snow from underneath these aircraft to allow access for the airlines’ own de-icing and service equipment to get them moving once again.

As has been evidenced at ;ength in other threads, many other European airport were similarly banjaxed by the recent weather, and while LHR has fared worst of all, and largely through its owners failure to invest even at the miost basic rate, it is unfair to suggest a normal service could – or should – have been maintained.

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