I can remember being in my office monitoring atc when this issue really started to 'kick off'.
An easy 319 lined up for departure on 27. Upon receiving t/o clearance along with the surface wind, they declined the clearance stating that the crosswind was over their 'revised limits'. ATC questioned this, as one can expect. The pilots informed them that they had received a fax from easy ops stating concern over the low adhesion at BRS, and had put a revised crosswind limit in place. ATC then informed them that there was no issue, and again cleared them for take off. The pilots declined and actually read out the fax to atc. The wind was then monitored for about 2 minutes until it was within limts, and the aircraft departed.
This all happened about 24 hours prior to the airline 'evacuation' from the airfield.
What I was amazed at was the pressure put on the pilots by atc, and that they were in a way 'defending' their runway. The easy pilots were unbelievably vigilant and steped over any 'advice' passed to them over the frequency. They departed when THEY declared it safe.
What a massive break down in communication. Easyjet ops obviously deemed the issue/risk serious enough to call a meeting, and produce a document for all BRS arrivals and departures. BIA buried their heads in the sand, and did a poor job of updating the guys in atc, the men and women at the forefront of the BIA operations.
24 hours later the airport was in chaos as airlines pulled out 1 by 1, BIA management then even appeared on TV slamming the airlines for withdrawing over speculation.
I hope lessons will be learned nationwide.......
P.S Again, credit to the ezy pilots who were a shining example of proffesionalism!!