Heathrow and British Airways in the news

There are a host of bad stories at the moment surrounding both British Airways and Heathrow Airport. BA have just been fined £125million by the Office of Fair Trading after it admitted price fixing of fuel surcharges on long-haul flights, this was also a joint investigation with the US Department of Justice who are going to announce their fine for BA today.

The Mayor of London has said Heathrow is shaming London with its poor service and lack of investment and it doesn’t help that Tony Douglas, the CEO of Heathrow quit last month after saying the airport was ‘bursting at the seams’ and was ‘at times held together by sticking plaster.’ According to The Independent story, BAA the company that runs Heathrow has also lost four other senior executives and a host of middle managers from their Heathrow team.

The travelling experience at Heathrow is getting so unpleasant that it could be effecting business travellers choosing to come to London. The vice-chairman of one company, Standard Chartered Capital Markets, says using it ‘is an experience so unpleasant that many international executives I meet will do almost anything to avoid travelling through Heathrow.’ Airlines are also pressing the government to break BAA’s monopoly on control of London’s airports and let different companies own individual terminals. Baggage restrictions, tougher security checks and the summer crush of families going on holiday won’t help the situation there in the short term.