Heathrow achieves International Recognition.

Giovanni Bisignani

It is not just the Celtic Sage who condemns Heathrow Airport and the cartels which make it an expensive horror story for its abused users but it has now achieved wider recognition. Heathrow Airport has now been described as “a national embarrassment” by the head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). And the Civil Aviation Authority - the watchdog designed to keep a check on Britain's airports - was named and shamed as “the world's worst regulator”. The criticism comes at a bad time for the indebted Spanish brick company Ferrovial which owns airport operator BAA, which could soon be forced to sell one of its three London airports as the Government looks to break its monopoly. BAA currently runs seven UK airports.

Yesterday's criticism of Heathrow - Europe's busiest airport - and the CAA was made by Giovanni Bisignani, head of the IATA at its annual conference in Istanbul. IATA represents the interests of more than 240 airlines worldwide. Giovanni Bisignani says service levels at Heathrow are a “national embarrassment” Mr Bisignani's comments come with UK airport and aviation bosses still dealing with the fallout from the shambolic opening of Heathrow's £4.3 billion Terminal 5.

He told the conference: “This year's Worst Regulator Award goes to the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Look at Heathrow; service levels are a national embarrassment but still the CAA increased charges by 50 per cent over the last five years and plans 86 per cent for the next five. Could anyone in this room ask for a fare increase of 86 per cent? Nobody. That only happens in "Monopoly-land".'

The CAA said it “agrees that passengers and airlines deserve better service than BAA has provided” and was beefing up penalties as an incentive for it to improve. BAA said it was “committed to improving services for passengers”. Last month BA boss Willie Walsh told MPs that the opening of Terminal 5 had been “a disaster” but said the airport had been “a national embarrassment for years”.

Britain's World Class Airport

The Celtic Sage particularly echoes the criticism of the Civil Aviation Authority and its totally useless “consumer” organisation ATUC – the so called “Air Traffic Users Council.” ( http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/up-up-and-away-with-baa-no-2.html ) which has been totally ineffective in enforcing EU Law No. 261 on Air Passenger Rights and in particular the rights of Disabled Passengers who are treated in a discreditable manner by most Airports and many airlines. This is something the Celtic Sage will return to in more righteous detail but in the meantime the farcical situation of the ineffectual CAA which has a close symbiotic relationship with the aviation industry pretending to protect the abused consumers of British Airports including the internationally recognised Heathrow Sinkpit must stop and an independent and effective consumer protection body be set up to act as the National Enforcement Body for EU Law 261.

Meanwhile take a bow Spanish Brick Company, BAA and Heathrow Airport on IATA’s World Class recognition of your efforts! It will take more than Tony Blair’s former spin doctor, Tom Kelly, who is now BAA’s Head of Public Affairs to spin them out of this one!

Save the St. Reatham One!

The St. Reatham One - 29 May 2008

The Celtic Sage has long cast a cold eye on the abusive behaviour of British Airways (BA) and the so called British Airports Authority (BAA) to the cattle (their expression is “self loading cargo”) who have to use their quasi monopolies which have been protected from full competition by cartel behaviour of various sorts. BAA is actually a front for a Spanish brick company called Ferrovial who overpaid with nearly £1 Bn of borrowed money for what it thought was a Cash Cow to find out it neither had the management skills or resources to husband it properly and this Cow would leave messy cow pats everywhere, particularly at the inept opening of Terminal 5 where the feisty Streatham One was caught up in the opening chaos. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/up-up-and-away-with-baa.html )
BAA has a dominant monopoly on airport capacity in the south of England and British Airways has a dominant position on slots from Heathrow which allows it to charge 30% more for an equivalent Business Class flight to New York than is available from Paris or Amsterdam. Yup, neither BA nor BAA need lessons in how to abuse customers or screw excess profits out of their cartels.

So the Celtic Sage is totally unsurprised at the behaviour of the Plods as the day after BAA reported its first quarterly loss and on the day British Airways announced increased fuel surcharges and that the rest of its flights won’t move to Terminal Five until October (thereby blocking its competitors from moving into Terminal 4) Supermodel Naomi Campbell was today charged with five offences over an alleged air rage incident at Heathrow. The charges, which include three offences of assaulting police, follow an incident last month when she was removed from a flight for Los Angeles after an alleged row over lost luggage.
(http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/up-up-and-away-with-baa-no-2.html )

In fact British Airways and BAA were so bad that they have succeeded in generating sympathy for Naomi “Anger Management” Campbell who was led off one of their planes by Police called by BA staff after she paid £6,000 for a First Class fare to Los Angeles and BA lost one of her bags which contained an outfit for a memorial service she was attending.

The alleged incident occurred on a BA flight which was due to leave for Los Angeles from Terminal 5 on 3 April. Ms Campbell will appear at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on 20 June, the Crown Prosecution Service said. Her lawyer, Simon Nicholls said she was "bitterly disappointed" to learn she will be prosecuted. He told reporters: "She respects that decision and she hopes this matter is dealt with expeditiously."

The British Airways "First Experience" 3 April 2008

The CPS said Ms Campbell has been charged with three counts of assaulting a constable, which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a fine of up to £5,000. She also faces one count of disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, which is punishable by a fine of up to £2,500, and two counts of using threatening, abusive words or behaviour towards cabin crew, which comes with a maximum penalty of £1,000.

Moments later, the Crown Prosecution Service formally announced the charges in a statement, saying: "The CPS has authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Naomi Campbell with five offences in relation to incidents that occurred on a stationary aircraft and within Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, London, on 3 April 2008. "Ms Campbell has today been charged with three offences of assaulting a constable, one offence of disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and one offence of using threatening, abusive words or behaviour to cabin crew. "These are summary offences which can only be tried at a magistrates' court."

The alleged incident occurred after the supermodel was told by staff in the first-class cabin that one her bags had been lost. They told her that she would have to leave the flight, causing Campbell to allegedly respond with an angry tirade which led to police being called. Reports claimed she had yelled "a***holes. You are all a***holes" at police and described BA staff as "bloody fools" as she allegedly lashed out verbally and physically. Female staff reportedly collapsed in tears as the incident escalated. After armed officers arrived, she was eventually taken off the plane in handcuffs. Although there has been no official confirmation, BA is understood to have imposed a lifetime ban on Campbell.

Well there are two issues hear where you may feel we should be supporting the Streatham One as an unlikely martyr figure for passenger rights and protection of passengers from an expensive publicly funded Constabulary (You know the one you don’t see on the streets, who don’t respond to burglaries, who replaced Police Stations with call centres, etc;) which has abandoned its statutory independence to become attack dogs for an abusive Transport Industry.

1. Why did the Police (armed officers no less) feel they had to become involved in a civil dispute between a customer who paid £6,000 for a service and an inept airline which failed abysmally to deliver the promised service to Naomi Campbell. Now Naomi is feisty and the Celtic Sage is aware of her reputation with Irish lads (take a bow Adam Clayton from U2!) but did she really put burly armed Constables in flak jackets waving handcuffs and pepper sprays in fear? And exactly who was being harassed having paid a premium rate to get to Los Angeles for a memorial service (Note; generally, people are only buried / cremated once) to be told by the airline that SHE would have to leave the plane because THEY had lost a bag (Indeed they lost thousands of bags) SHE had entrusted to THEM for safe keeping!

We wuz scared, Your Honour!

Why do the Police feel able to use draconian security legislation applying to airports to intimidate passengers who simply want to go from A to B?

2. Why are ALL airline customers at such a disadvantage when airlines use unfair contract terms to ignore the clear contract to get them and their luggage from A to B. Here is what BA’s website promises all who pay through the nose for their “First Experience.”

• Effortless travel
• A queue-less, personalised and stress free environment to check in your baggage
• Choice and control
• “Your secluded “demi-cabin” guarantees space and privacy
• Continue relaxing within our arrivals lounge
• Our specially trained First crew will provide you with a discreet yet attentive service, ensuring that all your personal needs are taken care of.

Well you couldn’t make it up could you; you don’t need to be a Naomi Campbell to feel harassed at the gap between the marketing guff and the reality. Perhaps the St. Reatham One should consider suing British Airways for what the law terms “unjust enrichment” by promising a service it clearly was in no position to deliver. Just as she won a legal precedent against the media over privacy maybe she can now establish another legal precedent;that merely by buying an airline ticket and entering an airport we do not agree to abandon our Civil Rights and our Consumer Rights. It is worth noting that since Naomi was harassed and abused on the 3rd April 2008 the MD of Heathrow Airport and the two British Airways Directors most closely involved in the T5 Fiasco have been sacked and BA have confirmed tha 19,000 bags have been lost permanently. Strangely, the only person arrested as a result of the fiasco has neen Naomi Campbell. Surely it can't be a case of the PLODs and the Crown Prosecution Service translating the "Public Interest" into desperately seeking publicity? This is much of what passes for Policing and the Justice System in the UK today; High Visibility; Zero Substance.

And as for the Court appearance I look forward to the evidence of a lardy armed copper in flak jacket “Well your honour, I looked at this tall, unarmed, Jamaican IC3 with a loud voice, funny accent, threatening big hair and larger than average lips and I immediately felt apprehensive for my safety. I have been off sick with diagnosed Post Naomi Stress Syndrome (PNSS) ever since and have taken to beating my wife more than normal and messing up my overtime claim.” Hopefully Lenny Henry will be in court gathering material for his next sketch! It's an opportunity too good to miss Lenny!

All together now, FREE THE ST. REATHAM ONE!!

The Terminal 5 Song

Terminal 5 is the success Daithai C predicted!!

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/up-up-and-away-with-baa-no-2.html

This great video and song plays better tribute to this Great British World Beater than my words can!

Up, up and away with BAA & BA !!!!

Up, up and away with BAA No. 2?

Cardboard City at Heathrow Teminal 5

Well following on from my Blog of 14th March last;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/up-up-and-away-with-baa.html

Terminal 5 has opened with a bang, but not the one its exclusive user British Airways, expected. In fact passengers at Heathrow's Terminal 5 have been reduced to sleeping in cardboard boxes as British Airways' woes intensified and the papers have carried Third World (or Waterloo subway) scenes of an impromptu cardboard city at Terminal 5 as disgruntled passengers camp out as flight upon flight gets cancelled. The flagship £4.3 billion building began to resemble a shanty town after the cancellation of more than 100 flights at the weekend left thousands of passengers stranded. The image of people huddling for warmth beneath the boxes, as snow and a technical fault with airport operator BAA's luggage system grounded the planes, was the latest embarrassment for both the airport and airline since the opening of Terminal 5.

Even British Airway’s own pilots have decided to kick them when they are down. Jim McAuslan, the general secretary of the pilots' union, BALPA, rounded on British Airways in an open letter.

"Banks, institutional investors and analysts need to wake up to the fact that there is something very wrong right at the heart of this company that is making our once great brand a laughing stock," he wrote.

Individual pilots have also started to voice their disquiet - at times on the public address system to passengers. One is understood to have said he was "ashamed" to work for the airline and another has urged passengers to email Willie Walsh, the chief executive, with their complaints. A BA spokesman defended the airline's chief executive. He said: "Willie Walsh said he will not resign and is determined to resolve the problems associated with the initial move to Terminal 5." A man of steel is our Willie who left Aer Lingus when the possibility of gaining a small fortune in a management buy out evaporated. The former Aer Lingus chief appeared to come from nowhere when he took over at the Irish airline in 2001. He joined the company in 1979 as a cadet pilot and gradually worked his way up through the ranks into flight operations management in the mid-1990s. In 1998, he became chief executive of Futura - the company's chartered airline in Spain - then was named chief finance officer in 2000.

Willie Walsh

Perhaps his claim that "a reasonable man gets nowhere in negotiations" - made in a staff publication when he represented pilots during their row with managers - was a hint of the man to come, as his tough decisions at the top made him few friends.

In 2004, he made it known that he wanted to explore the possibility of a management buy-out. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern attacked him from the floor of the Dail, the Irish parliament, for trying to cash in on the airline. He left the airline in January 2005, four months ahead of schedule, amid reports that he was in talks about setting up a rival airline.

In fact British Airways has been so bad that they have succeeded in generating sympathy for Supermodel Naomi “Anger Management” Campbell who was led off one of their planes by Police called by BA staff after she paid £6,000 for a First Class fare to Los Angeles and BA lost one of her bags which contained an outfit for a memorial service she was attending. Naomi, with the BA Lottery, you pays your money and takes your chances - surely you didn't believe the publicity on their website about the "First Experience" giving you "Effortless Travel" and "Choice and Control" not to mention the clincher "A queue-less, personalised and stress free environment to check in your baggage."? What did you expect from British Airways for a mere six thousand pounds? Respect? Efficiency? Your baggage back? Keeping their promises to you? Oh Naomi, to think you used to be streetwise!! Heathrow Terminal 5 to Heathrow Central Police Station in only 10 hours!!

The Stress Free First Experience


It is notable that as Customer Service has deteriorated in the Transport industry fashionable posters have appeared saying something to the effect “Our Staff will not be abused” and threatening dire sanctions and Police action to those in Cattle (and First) Class who make outrageous demands to be treated with respect and civility on the unreasonable grounds that they have paid for a ticket. As Airport Operators and Airlines routinely abuse passengers, flaunt the Disability Discrimination Act and ignore EU Law No. 261 on the rights of airline passengers the Police (Security is paramount in the current climate!) seem entirely content to become attack dogs for an increasingly abusive and uncaring transport industry. It is for such Independence of Mind that we have a Police Service to apply the Law without fear or favour and 46 highly paid Chief Constables and one Metropolitan Commissioner who, by law, must be unfettered and independent in their operational responsibilities. You may not find this at your local airport Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, where staff (often Agency badly trained minimum wage types) use the posters and Police to say Foxtrot Oscar to the old, the disabled and those with children.

Independent Constables of the Realm keeping the Queen's Peace and applying the Law without Fear or Favour

These are the rights the UK SHOULD be enforcing at UK airports for people with reduced mobility from the EU’s website:

Around 10% of the EU population is affected by reduced mobility – these are mainly disabled and elderly people, while others are unable to walk long distances as often required in modern airports. Most airlines and airports make genuine efforts to offer the necessary assistance. However, not all of them provide comprehensive assistance, free of charge. These problems are addressed by Regulation (EC) No 1107/2006, adopted by the Parliament and the Council on 5 July 2006, which provides for persons with reduced mobility to travel by plane without difficulty. The Regulation’s provisions cover three areas; those covering the first area are entering into force tomorrow.

Equal treatment of persons affected by reduced mobility.
For flights from airports in the EU, the Regulation prohibits the refusal by airlines and tour operators to carry passengers, or to take bookings, on the basis of reduced mobility. Exceptions can be made only for duly justified safety reasons. This should put an end to (generally unintended) instances of discrimination.

Free assistance in all EU airports.
As from 26 July 2008, airports will have to provide a specific set of services for persons with reduced mobility.

Assistance on board.
On flights from EU airports, airlines will be obliged to provide certain services, such as the carrying of wheelchairs or guide dogs, free of charge. These rules will also enter into force on 26 July 2008.

The EU’s Member States, for their part, have to set up enforcement bodies responsible for ensuring that the Regulation is applied on their territory. Any person affected by a disability or by reduced mobility who considers that these rights have not been respected can bring the matter to the attention of the management of the airport or the airline in question. In case of an unsatisfactory response, a complaint can be made to the national enforcement body designated by the Member State.
For further information, go to:

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/air_portal/passenger_rights/prm/index_en.htm

The link to this site also gives you access to the general rights you have at EU airports when flights are delayed, cancelled or you are denied boarding;

“Denied boarding.
The new regulation will dramatically reduce the frequency of denying boarding against a passenger's will, by a combination of two measures. First, when expecting to turn passengers away, and before doing anything else, airlines will be obliged to call for volunteers to surrender their seats in exchange for advantages; in other words they would try to strike a deal with passengers interested in giving up their seats. Only if insufficient volunteers came forward, would they be allowed to deny passengers boarding against their will. Second, if after all airlines or tour operators do deny passengers boarding, they would have to pay compensation at a dissuasive level:

• € 250 for flights of less than 1500 km
• € 400 for intra-Community flights of more than 1500 km and for other flights 1500 and 3500 km
• € 600 for all other flights.

This will create a strong incentive to make volunteering attractive and a powerful deterrent to deny boarding. In addition to financial compensation, passengers denied boarding will continue to enjoy these rights:

• the choice between reimbursement of their ticket and an alternative flight, and
• meals, refreshments and hotel accommodation.
• Minimise the inconvenience of cancellations.

When airlines or tour operators cancel flights on their own responsibility, passengers will have the right to compensation at the rate fixed for denied boarding, unless:

they are informed two weeks before the scheduled time of departure, or

they are informed on due time and re-routed at a time very close to that of their original flight.

In addition, in case of cancellations, passengers will receive three other rights:

• meals and refreshments, and
• hotel accommodation, when a cancellation obliges a passenger to stay overnight, and
• Reimbursement, when a cancellation delays a passenger for at least five hours.
• Assist passengers facing long delays.

When airlines reasonably expect a long delay, they will be obliged to give passengers:

• meals and refreshments, and
• hotel accommodation, when a delay obliges a passenger to stay overnight, and
• Reimbursement, when a delay delays a passenger for at least five hours.

Your rights are summarised on the poster (see link) which should be displayed at every UK Airport but those who DEMAND RESPECT often hide them around corners and in stairwells;

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/air_portal/passenger_rights/doc/2008_apr_poster/aff_apr_a4_en.pdf

The European Union provide a Freephone Helpline Number: 00800 678 91011 which is staffed 09.00 to 18.30 CET Weekdays.

By contrast the National Enforcement Body for the UK, the Civil Aviation Authority and its totally toothless passenger watchdog, The Air Transport Users Council, provide nothing because being British, they rely on everybody being good chappies!

Disabled Friendly?

We have seen what has happened in Terminal 5 – Elsewhere Ryanair’s respect for the law extends to NOT having the EU leaflets which should be available from all carriers and giving you a one page summary saying they disagree with the Law therefore they won’t apply it. Try this argument with the Police at a UK Airport the next time you receive the FOXTROT OSCAR treatment from the Oh, so law abiding, Airport Operators and Airlines. And Finally – The EU is prosecuting National Enforcement Authorities, including the CAA in the United Kingdom, for NOT ENFORCING EC LAW ON PASSENGER RIGHTS. Somebody should explain to people who do not pay for their flights, such as the Secretary of State for Transport and the Government’s “Respect Czar” that respect is a TWO WAY PROCESS. Let’s stand up for respect for Disabled People and Passengers in general. Indeed the UK Border Agency (Leadership by example?) could comply with the Disability Discrimination Act at entry points and so could Airport Security checks so I wouldn’t have to witness, as I did at Birmingham’s miserable airport, an elderly passenger tottering taking off a leg brace without even a chair being provided and being ignored by staff and a manager with no disability awareness training.

Perhaps the Constabulary could turn its attention to such illegality and stop helping badly run profit hungry private Airlines and Airports bully and intimidate passengers? Now there is a respectful thought?

Up, up and away with BAA?

Last Friday 14th March 2007 when BAA opened Terminal 5 at Heathrow should have been a day of celebration for the company but on the same day a committee of MPs has called for the break-up of BAA, saying that its dominance has proved stifling for competition. BAA, owned by the Spanish brick company Ferrovial, runs London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton.

MPs said BAA's dominance is "bad for passengers" and the aviation industry. BAA said a break-up would only delay "the provision of extra runway and terminal capacity". However the MP’s committee has stated "BAA's monopoly position in the UK airports sector is unnecessary. Indeed, it is bad for passengers and bad for the aviation industry.

BAA was bought by Ferrovial for £12 Bn, mostly borrowed as the Spaniards put in only £460 of their own money and £10.5 Bn. of this debt still sits on its balance sheet. The real winners were BAA’s former shareholders who happily accepted their absurdly inflated bid. Now Ferrovial with the connivance of the so called regulator, the CAA, is saddled with these huge debts which it would like us, the travelling public to pay off. The company serves almost 150m passengers a year but in the past year has been attacked by the public and airline industry alike for its mismanagement of airport operations with third world style camp outs in its terminals and horrendous security queues.

The criticism of BAA is that it should have predicted the predictable and planned accordingly but basic infrastructure has been dismal such as the inadequate luggage handling system at Terminal 4. It also turns out that Terminal 5 has been built as a result of a succession of broken promises by BAA which has consistently lied about its intentions over the years.

BAA’s recently departed managing director Stephen Nelson admitted to MP’s that, 12 years ago BAA had given public assurances that proved to be false, saying that a third runway would not be needed.

In 1995 BAA stated in its official newsletter: “BAA has said repeatedly that Terminal 5 will not lead to a third runway. BAA has said repeatedly THERE WILL NOT BE A THIRD RUNWAY. And BAA has been proved right. The Secretary of State has accepted the BAA view. The issue has been settled; people’s concerns have been met. What now of those who claimed BAA was not telling the truth?”

In 2001 BAA and the Government accepted the recommendation of the planning inspector who approved Terminal 5 that the number of flights at Heathrow should be capped at 480,000. However, despite those BAA assurances in 1995, ministers now support a third runway and a plan was published in November that would increase the capacity to 702,000 flights.

The double standard has led to a rash of broken promises on Heathrow. Terminal 4 was approved in 1978, subject to a cap on annual traffic movements of 275,000. Two years later BAA recorded 287,000 movements and 376,000 in 1990. When Terminal 5 was approved in 2001, the planning inspector and BAA stated that a third runway would be “totally unacceptable”, and set a new cap of 480,000 movements. But by 2003 a White Paper aimed at 700,000.

But BAA has not misled the public on its own but has had a collusive relationship with central government with its current head of Public Affairs being Tom Kelly, former press secretary to Tony Blair. Take the current Heathrow greenwash first. Ministers repeat the mantra that “Heathrow's expansion will only go ahead within strict environmental limits”. But they know full well that the absence of legal standards on noise leaves communities defenceless. New EU air-quality standards had looked like an insuperable hurdle to a third runway, but are being fudged with ropey claims that road traffic emissions will fall. Two weeks ago the Advertising Standards Authority ordered British Airways to withdraw the claim, made by its CEO in an e-mail to Executive Club members, that the third runway would reduce carbon dioxide emissions because aircraft would no longer have to waste fuel queuing to take off or land. This flatly contradicted Whitehall models, which assume that the new runway will raise CO2 emissions by 2.6 million tonnes a year from the 200,000 extra flights. When I lived on the Great West Road in Hounslow directly under the landing approach a mile from the airport the houses had triple glazing and soudbox ventilators to cope with the environmental fall-out. Walking outside you inhaled air that smelt and tasted of Avjet, as modern aircraft are particularly inefficient at burning fuel when the engines are throttled back for landing.

Secondly, take the arguments about capacity. BAA's figures demonstrate clearly that Heathrow is not full. Not remotely. The appendix to the government consultation on the third runway states that 67 million passengers used Heathrow in 2006, and that this could rise to 122 million if a third runway were built. But it also shows that 95 million people could use Heathrow if “maximum use were made of existing runways”. At one stroke we are looking at a deception, perhaps the greatest ever perpetrated on the British people by the optimistically named Department for Transport. For BAA itself is telling us that 28 million more people could use Heathrow without a new runway and without breaking the cap on flights.

How? By using larger planes and filling more seats. Jeff Gazzard, of Airport Watch, says that if Heathrow were not allowed to expand, it could spur the airline industry to invest more rapidly in larger aircraft like the A380, on which some are already hedging their bets. Bigger planes would not solve climate change, although they would reduce local pollution. The point is that we have been told that Heathrow is full when it is not. That kind of distortion suggests that the DfT has ceased to function as an arm of government and has become a mere subsidiary of BAA.

The justification is the importance of aviation to the economy. It would be foolish to argue that air travel is not important to business. But some of the mythology is misleading. The growth in air traffic is overwhelmingly from leisure travel, not business. More than 80 per cent of international travellers at UK airports, and 60 per cent at Heathrow, are holidaymakers. Outbound tourism outstrips inbound, creating a whopping £18 billion balance of payments deficit. Only this week, the Travelodge chain of hotels called for an end to unfair tax breaks for budget airlines, which it said were “the single biggest cause of decline in traditional [UK] tourism resorts”. It is one thing to treat the air industry as a special case; it is quite another thing to distort the facts. And here the Government's collusion with the industry is a problem.

No where does this collusion seem more dramatic than with the unfit for purpose “watchdog” the Civil Aviation Authority, the CAA, and its passenger watchdog, The Air Users Council which has been so inept in enforcing air passengers rights under EU Law. 261 that the EU has threatened enforcement action against them and Ryanair actually give passengers a leaflet saying the law is stupid and they won’t comply with it. I must remember this defence the next time I’m stopped by a police officer! I’m sure I would receive a succinct response.

Anybody who has used Heathrow’s clapped out facilities over the past 5 years has helped pay for the gleaming new Terminal 5 but as it is reserved for British Airways customers they will not have the benefit of it if they fly with another airline. Despite this they will get to share the burden of a 23.5% increase in airport charges next month as in a dramatic award for failure the CAA has allowed BAA to double charges over the next 5 years. What does BAA have to do other than sit back and count the cash?

As for Terminal 5 when the Queen opened this terminal of broken promises on Friday this was a “soft” opening with a hand picked and screened audience lest Her Majesty, Government Ministers and BAA’s exceptionally talented and remunerated management be exposed to the gratitude of the travelling public. It will start to open to real people on the 27th March. One surprise is that 54% of gates will not have air bridges and consequently step free access as provided for under phase 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act which became law in October 2006. Indeed under our wonderful regulator disabled people are effectively excluded from UK airports unless they book “assistance” in advance, which is not what the Act says. Perhaps the Government could pursue its “Respect” agenda by respecting its own laws and ensuring its regulator enforces them?