The Airport That Disgraces London

THE HEAD of the International Air Transport Association, Giovanni Bisignani, may be considered an authority on airport and passenger safety so perhaps the Government and BAA, which runs Heathrow and Gatwick, will heed his remarks about the current security regime. He says limiting handluggage to one item for each traveller does not improve security and that airport screening in the UK only inconveniences passengers. By contrast, he thinks that sharing passenger data between the EU and the US is effective against terrorism. Meanwhile, the Mayor, Ken Livingstone, has today expressed the sentiments of many travellers when he called Heathrow “a ghastly shopping mall”.

Ministers must now answer these concerns. Travelling conditions at Heathrow are not just vexatious for holidaymakers but for business travellers too. As the City businessman Sir Thomas Harris points out on the page opposite, the discrepancies between the handluggage regime at Heathrow and that at other airports alienate international passengers in transit, many of whom go out of their way to avoid the airport.

This, and the interminable queuing, is bad for those firms that do business abroad.

The blame for this state of affairs can be divided between BAA and the Government. BAA has had a year to come to terms with enhanced security measures but it failed to install state-of-the- art scanners in sufficient numbers, or enough staff it is often the case that not all scanning machines are in use.

Yet the Government is to blame, too, for queues in the arrivals hall. It also advises BAA on security and so must take part of the blame for the present restrictive regime. Yesterday the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Kitty Ussher, expressed concern about delays; yet it is her government which is responsible for the illogical one-piece-of-baggage rule, and for immigration control. Today the Border and Immigration Agency said that: “We believe we have enough people to do the job quickly enough”: few passengers arriving from outside the EU would agree with that breezy assessment.

The condition of our major airport matters to London. Yet since Sunday, BAA has responded to this paper’s coverage of the problem by refusing our reporters permission to enter the airport and interview passengers. Just what does the company and its director of communications, Duncan Bonfield, have to hide? Both BAA and ministers must now stop making excuses and start taking the Heathrow problem seriously before it damages London’s position as an international business centre..

(c) 2007 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.