In no way am excusing what the airport is doing, I myself work for one of the handling agents and not BAA so have experienced first hand the chaos that arrises on the days when the staffing level is extra low and unable to cope.
As far as I am aware BAA took on temp staff for the busy summer time and towards the end these contracts ran out and yes BAA made a huge misscalculation in the way the new security measures would affect this particular airport, and I couldnt agree with you more in that all the other airports dont seem to be suffering from this problem however its just the way it is and they are already recruiting new permanent staff. It is also a case of quality not quantity, if for example BAA did a massive recruitment drive and took anyone that went for it they could have huge problems if a month into it they find the staff are not any good, chaos would happen again and mistakes would be made which being an airport can cost peoples lives.
In a month or so the sutuation should be ok and BAA will be able look at this as a big lesson. All busineses make mistakes just as people do and some mistakes are bigger than others but all mistakes are there to learn from.
