HEATHROW
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Heathrow Safety in Question
I am posting this here because it's a serious problem.
BAA's management, at Heathrow, has demonstrated that they are unfit ro run the UK's major air transport hub, or indeed any airport at all. Whether this is due to under-resourcing as a result of the huge leveraged debt that the Spaniards bought it with, or simply lack of knowledge of how to run an airport, is neither here nore there.
I am qualified to comment as a one-time BAA employee who also ran a UK airport for 7 years. The recent LHR closure should never have happened, let alone continued for as long as it did, and it was easily preventable. This is not hindsight; it is what anyone with the right experience knows.
It is time for the regulator to step in, on economic and safety grounds. They issue and re-issue the licence under which BAA operates Heathrow, and the lack of funds and/or knowledge must throw into question BAA's suitability to run an airport.
I only need one illustration. Responding to an article saying that their stocks of de/anti-icing fluid werre insufficient for financial reasons, an extremely unpropossessing "spokesman" angrily affirmed that they had more than enough. He did not seem to understand that this raised the question of why it was not used properly when the snow falls that closed the airport unnecessarily had been forecast.
What else is unsafe about Heathrow that the management is not in control of?
As an economic regulator, The CAA should also step in now, if necessary to take over the management of a national asset, to prevent further damage to the UK's air transport industry.
Perhaps the real problem that the UK has is the supine complaisance of the CAA and its refusal to do its job effectively, robustly and promptly.
I can undersatand, without condoning, the Spanish owners' focus on their balance sheet. Why would they care about the UK economy? The CAA exists, as any regulator does, to impose its will on such an operator to achieve purposes over and above the operator's profits, such as safety and the industry's wider interests.
Heathrow's management collapse over the last week or two has dealt an economic blow to the UK that will take a long time to recover from. Is the only penalty paid by BAA going to be what appears to be a voluntary handing back of an unearned bonus by a man who is paid a huge salary in the first place? He should have been sacked already, along with his useless "team". Who awarded him this bonus in the first place? One suspects that it was automatic.
BAA's management, at Heathrow, has demonstrated that they are unfit ro run the UK's major air transport hub, or indeed any airport at all. Whether this is due to under-resourcing as a result of the huge leveraged debt that the Spaniards bought it with, or simply lack of knowledge of how to run an airport, is neither here nore there.
I am qualified to comment as a one-time BAA employee who also ran a UK airport for 7 years. The recent LHR closure should never have happened, let alone continued for as long as it did, and it was easily preventable. This is not hindsight; it is what anyone with the right experience knows.
It is time for the regulator to step in, on economic and safety grounds. They issue and re-issue the licence under which BAA operates Heathrow, and the lack of funds and/or knowledge must throw into question BAA's suitability to run an airport.
I only need one illustration. Responding to an article saying that their stocks of de/anti-icing fluid werre insufficient for financial reasons, an extremely unpropossessing "spokesman" angrily affirmed that they had more than enough. He did not seem to understand that this raised the question of why it was not used properly when the snow falls that closed the airport unnecessarily had been forecast.
What else is unsafe about Heathrow that the management is not in control of?
As an economic regulator, The CAA should also step in now, if necessary to take over the management of a national asset, to prevent further damage to the UK's air transport industry.
Perhaps the real problem that the UK has is the supine complaisance of the CAA and its refusal to do its job effectively, robustly and promptly.
I can undersatand, without condoning, the Spanish owners' focus on their balance sheet. Why would they care about the UK economy? The CAA exists, as any regulator does, to impose its will on such an operator to achieve purposes over and above the operator's profits, such as safety and the industry's wider interests.
Heathrow's management collapse over the last week or two has dealt an economic blow to the UK that will take a long time to recover from. Is the only penalty paid by BAA going to be what appears to be a voluntary handing back of an unearned bonus by a man who is paid a huge salary in the first place? He should have been sacked already, along with his useless "team". Who awarded him this bonus in the first place? One suspects that it was automatic.
Join Date: Aug 2001
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Sheesh Capot, little OTT. Not sure you can draw a parallel between what's happened this week and their ability to operate a safe airport.
By no measure was their performance good this week and I think that EGKK's performance will shine a spotlight on EGLL that gets the attention of government and industry alike.
Colin M should update his CV though...
By no measure was their performance good this week and I think that EGKK's performance will shine a spotlight on EGLL that gets the attention of government and industry alike.
Colin M should update his CV though...
Join Date: Feb 2006
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definitely an OTT statement.
By the way, EGKK may have been better in the publics eye (second time round, not first time) but from an ATCOs point of view, the airfield operator wasn't exactly 'on the ball' either during either snowfall.
Lots of lessons to be learnt all round, including some Airline Operators, in what was very trying circumstances.
By the way, EGKK may have been better in the publics eye (second time round, not first time) but from an ATCOs point of view, the airfield operator wasn't exactly 'on the ball' either during either snowfall.
Lots of lessons to be learnt all round, including some Airline Operators, in what was very trying circumstances.
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Trash 'n' Navs
Aint that the truth.
Capot,
I'd be interested to hear how you would have dealt with it, costings etc. It's very easy to write in hindsight (even if you claim it isn't). You used to be in the business... which probably means that you don't know what went on in the background.
Which airfield did you run, by the way? As busy or complex as EGLL perchance?
There are lessons to be learned by all, but these lessons will only be relevant if all the information is used. Someone on the outside, looking in can snipe... that's easy to do, but unless you know the story from start to finish, including the minute by minute flow of informationduring the week, from all agencies, then personal opinions carry no weight.
I can guarantee that those fully 'in the know' (and I am not one of them, though did have some involvement) will be workng to ensure that disruption is minimised in the future. At a more local level the team I work with have already started that process to share our experiences with other watches.
Aint that the truth.
Capot,
I'd be interested to hear how you would have dealt with it, costings etc. It's very easy to write in hindsight (even if you claim it isn't). You used to be in the business... which probably means that you don't know what went on in the background.
Which airfield did you run, by the way? As busy or complex as EGLL perchance?
There are lessons to be learned by all, but these lessons will only be relevant if all the information is used. Someone on the outside, looking in can snipe... that's easy to do, but unless you know the story from start to finish, including the minute by minute flow of informationduring the week, from all agencies, then personal opinions carry no weight.
I can guarantee that those fully 'in the know' (and I am not one of them, though did have some involvement) will be workng to ensure that disruption is minimised in the future. At a more local level the team I work with have already started that process to share our experiences with other watches.
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Another thing...I am still in the business; I just don't run an airport any more.
I'm afraid I sense in some of the replies too great a willingness to forgive and move on.
I stand by my statement that the closure should not have happened and under a knowledgeable and experienced management, with proper resources and finance would not have happened.
That's the rub; you need a knowledgeable and experienced management to run an airport safely in all respects, let alone an owner which understands its obligations, and I saw little of that in the last few days.
In my book "learning lessons and moving on" is a code for "carry on as before, thank God we got away with it without being sacked".
I have noticed over a longish life that very little changes for the better unless people fear for their future if it does not, by reference to what happened to those in charge when it last went wrong.
I'm afraid I sense in some of the replies too great a willingness to forgive and move on.
I stand by my statement that the closure should not have happened and under a knowledgeable and experienced management, with proper resources and finance would not have happened.
That's the rub; you need a knowledgeable and experienced management to run an airport safely in all respects, let alone an owner which understands its obligations, and I saw little of that in the last few days.
In my book "learning lessons and moving on" is a code for "carry on as before, thank God we got away with it without being sacked".
I have noticed over a longish life that very little changes for the better unless people fear for their future if it does not, by reference to what happened to those in charge when it last went wrong.
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Well,Ive always been amused by just how little snow it takes to shut down London's airports(and the roads and the railways
).1-2 inches and theyre screaming closure.Scandinavian airports are (Naturally I suppose) a good example for London to try and follow.They can clear a runway in 20-30 minutes and their remote automatic de-icing gear is first class.In theory,as LHR has 2 runways,it should never have shut down at all(1 rwy being cleared,1 rwy in operation and so on) but I dont know how much snow did actually fall.A snow blizzard will shut down the best prepared airport,but 2 inches of snow?
).1-2 inches and theyre screaming closure.Scandinavian airports are (Naturally I suppose) a good example for London to try and follow.They can clear a runway in 20-30 minutes and their remote automatic de-icing gear is first class.In theory,as LHR has 2 runways,it should never have shut down at all(1 rwy being cleared,1 rwy in operation and so on) but I dont know how much snow did actually fall.A snow blizzard will shut down the best prepared airport,but 2 inches of snow?
Join Date: Dec 2006
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While shutting down when the snow level became unmanagable was a necessary and correct safety action, BAA is an airport operator and its management system is bigger than just its ICAO mandated SMS.
The bottom line is that BAA is meant to be an airport operator and needs to have a safe way to OPERATE its airports not simply a safe way to shut them down.
That means having appropriate measures to manage the safely hazards they face.
Although the weather in the UK has been worse this year than usual, snowfalls earlier in the year and those that affected Gatwick earlier in the month all were valid warnings to BAA.
It appears that BAA choose to run risks rather than manage them and thus have suffered a catastrophic clsoure.
The inability to manage business risks suggests that either capot is correct and that we should doubt the inability of the BAA board to manage safety risks OR that if the BAA SMS is funtional, then the underlying safety culture is one of simply doing what the safety regulator tells them.
One can therefore conclude that:
The bottom line is that BAA is meant to be an airport operator and needs to have a safe way to OPERATE its airports not simply a safe way to shut them down.
That means having appropriate measures to manage the safely hazards they face.
Although the weather in the UK has been worse this year than usual, snowfalls earlier in the year and those that affected Gatwick earlier in the month all were valid warnings to BAA.
It appears that BAA choose to run risks rather than manage them and thus have suffered a catastrophic clsoure.
The inability to manage business risks suggests that either capot is correct and that we should doubt the inability of the BAA board to manage safety risks OR that if the BAA SMS is funtional, then the underlying safety culture is one of simply doing what the safety regulator tells them.
One can therefore conclude that:
- The entire board of BAA are failing in their duties as directors of an airport operator and should be removed
- The CAA should seriously look at the management comptence and safety culture at BAA and make appropriate recommendations for the new board
- The CAA, as an economic regulator, need to introduce penalties when critical national infrastructure is not resilient to foresseable and controllable hazards
Join Date: Aug 2002
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Airlines
I agree with all comments on modern airlines and cost cutting now clearly gone beyond common sense: airlines have moved to lower fares, due to low cost carriers, which meant less Agents on the ground, less staff at check in but most importantly less specialised agents at their ticket offices for reprotections, rerouting of tickets etc.
Having hundreds of self check-in e-machine at the terminals is great when everything goes as scheduled. If there is any type of disruption you cannot go and talk to a machine, the screen cannot do anything for you, only real people with ticketing and fare experience can really help and sort you out with your flights, hotels, car hire, etc.
The recent snow disruption has been massive, thousands of people got stranded at LHR but airlines must remember that clients are important as much as their own staff working on the ground, these people are left alone by Management: to leave a handful of ground agents alone facing thousands of irate passengers is simply criminal and it should be against Health and Safety regulations. I have seen ground Airline Agents literally crying, exhausted and humiliated by the infuriated crowds, left totally alone just at XMas.
Airlines should really act with respect, I do not understand why Unions do not step forward on this issue, these people are underpaid and they get hit badly whe things go wrong and BAA/Airlines are not prepared, Agents on the ground should probably earn more money than pilots and certainly more than cabin crew. They earn peanuts I have been told.
I have witnessed with my eyes crowds of irate customers releasing all their ferocious anger against these under-paid employees only because they have an airline Uniform, they had to call the police regularly to avoid serious injuries.
Our modern society is really upside down: Managers sitting in a leather chair watching SkyNews and incapable of organising a simple snow plan and the base of the underpaid workforce being directly penalised by these awful mistakes, people on 300K p.a. or more doing all wrong at the top, and people on 14K p.a. or less just being abused by irate customers at the bottom.
Would it not be better to pay a little more for a ticket and get the service back as it used to be only 15 years ago?
The world is gone mad.
I do not blame the airlines, I blame this crazy system now.
It has just gone out of control I think
Having hundreds of self check-in e-machine at the terminals is great when everything goes as scheduled. If there is any type of disruption you cannot go and talk to a machine, the screen cannot do anything for you, only real people with ticketing and fare experience can really help and sort you out with your flights, hotels, car hire, etc.
The recent snow disruption has been massive, thousands of people got stranded at LHR but airlines must remember that clients are important as much as their own staff working on the ground, these people are left alone by Management: to leave a handful of ground agents alone facing thousands of irate passengers is simply criminal and it should be against Health and Safety regulations. I have seen ground Airline Agents literally crying, exhausted and humiliated by the infuriated crowds, left totally alone just at XMas.
Airlines should really act with respect, I do not understand why Unions do not step forward on this issue, these people are underpaid and they get hit badly whe things go wrong and BAA/Airlines are not prepared, Agents on the ground should probably earn more money than pilots and certainly more than cabin crew. They earn peanuts I have been told.
I have witnessed with my eyes crowds of irate customers releasing all their ferocious anger against these under-paid employees only because they have an airline Uniform, they had to call the police regularly to avoid serious injuries.
Our modern society is really upside down: Managers sitting in a leather chair watching SkyNews and incapable of organising a simple snow plan and the base of the underpaid workforce being directly penalised by these awful mistakes, people on 300K p.a. or more doing all wrong at the top, and people on 14K p.a. or less just being abused by irate customers at the bottom.
Would it not be better to pay a little more for a ticket and get the service back as it used to be only 15 years ago?
The world is gone mad.
I do not blame the airlines, I blame this crazy system now.
It has just gone out of control I think
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One thng that needs to be resolved in these difficut times is the release of information and the ability of pax at the airport to rebook.
Has anyone considered that one way to help the logjamb is for the BAA to have numerous FREE internet screens dotted around the terminal. These terminals need to have icons on the home pages which give links to all the airlines hotels transport links etc. They must NOT have the ability to be used for any other internet business. I believe all airports around the world should provide this service
Has anyone considered that one way to help the logjamb is for the BAA to have numerous FREE internet screens dotted around the terminal. These terminals need to have icons on the home pages which give links to all the airlines hotels transport links etc. They must NOT have the ability to be used for any other internet business. I believe all airports around the world should provide this service
Driving along the M4 tonight my attentio was caught by a radio ad claiming that if you fly through Heathrow youhave a fabulous selction of designer and top branded goods at prices 15% below Londons West End.The ad ened witha tag line jingle 'Heathrow -making journeys better'!!!
I am sure many people over the last week were thrilled at the shopping opportunites at UKs largest retail park with runways while they were left without information, flights, food etc etc because the people who manage the place spend more on shopping facilties than airport operations .
Sadly however Heathrow is just a poster boy for the muppet show management we have in UK interested solely in their own position and salary while caring nothing for the enterprise they are supposed to run
Happy Christmas all
I am sure many people over the last week were thrilled at the shopping opportunites at UKs largest retail park with runways while they were left without information, flights, food etc etc because the people who manage the place spend more on shopping facilties than airport operations .
Sadly however Heathrow is just a poster boy for the muppet show management we have in UK interested solely in their own position and salary while caring nothing for the enterprise they are supposed to run
Happy Christmas all
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As busy or complex as EGLL perchance
Lots of lessons to be learnt all round, including some Airline Operators, in what was very trying circumstances
What lessons need to be learned...when they are already in place again at other airports round the world with similar movements and equally complex ground movements?
Letting people off the hook with the statements you make should not be acceptable as EGLL can learn from NUMEROUS agencies round the world..but either choose not to..or think they are unique.
It is embarrassing being British in YYZ at the moment.....the "different snow", "unprecedented events", "complexities of LHR" lines all are met with the question..
What was the snow plan then to deal with such things?
An airport that important to the infrastructure closing down at one of the busiest times of year is appalling.
Imagine if we were as poorly prepared in ATC...we'd get lambasted. Nothing would get in and out of the airspace around England if you/we were as inflexible as the snow plan the BAA had in place.
Aviation is supposed to be a flexible industry and also all about handling the unexpected (why do we train for full radar failures when they supposedly never happen...why do the airlines simulate complete engine failures when they hardly ever happen???)
The plan put in place for an airport that deals with 65 million passengers annually get stalled within a couple of hours. That to me from a professional perspective is a disgrace. I don't care about CDG and AMS and FRA and the fiascos there....as a Brit I care about my so called flagship hub..
BTW the only thing I do agree with as has been mentioned before is that an airport that operates at 98% capacity all the time is always going to come unstuck when something screws up the operation. If any lessons are going to be learned then it has to be something to do with spare capacity or cutting the flow rate for bad weather.
Keeping Danny in Sandwiches
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BTW the only thing I do agree with as has been mentioned before is that an airport that operates at 98% capacity all the time is always going to come unstuck when something screws up the operation. If any lessons are going to be learned then it has to be something to do with spare capacity or cutting the flow rate for bad weather.
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****e , ****e , the reaction to the " Snow " was ****e , punter's in Terminal 3 sleeping on the floor , no , sign , of ANY , info !!!! , NONE 
, CLEARENCE OF SNOW bugger all , day 27L/09R got cleared , it took 2hr's , LHR OP's , trying to prove a point ??????... HHhhhmmmm.................
, CLEARENCE OF SNOW bugger all , day 27L/09R got cleared , it took 2hr's , LHR OP's , trying to prove a point ??????... HHhhhmmmm.................
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Two interesting developments....
1. Virgin are witholding payment to BAA because of the snow feasco....
2. I see Mech Assassin has delete his posts on this forum which tried to defend BAA's record and to which many of us responded - in a not too favourable manor.
Any news on the progress of this internal enquiry? If its internal, I bet there's opportunity for some white washing (all puns intended!)
1. Virgin are witholding payment to BAA because of the snow feasco....
2. I see Mech Assassin has delete his posts on this forum which tried to defend BAA's record and to which many of us responded - in a not too favourable manor.
Any news on the progress of this internal enquiry? If its internal, I bet there's opportunity for some white washing (all puns intended!)
Sort of shows you where their management priorities lie, doesn't it ?
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Code:
Sort of shows you where their management priorities lie, doesn't it ?
You might want to start asking why does virgin need to hold these payments or is it a cheap PR stunt ryanair style?
fr-
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You might want to start asking why does virgin need to hold these payments or is it a cheap PR stunt ryanair style?
One thing I do like about FR, is their ability not to take the utter bollocks from some airport operators that some do. BAA basically accused BA of not being willing to run the operation when the snow came. Try and find PR man Mr Teacher (he of the perm), being interviewed on BBC in a blizzard off 27R when the snow came. "Well bmi are still flying" he said as the sound of an invisible aircraft departing into a flurry of snow rumbled past.