91Èȱ¬

The boss of Britain's biggest airport operator has made a detailed apology on 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4's File On 4 programme for the four days of disruption and chaos which paralysed London's Heathrow Airport in the week leading up to Christmas.

In his first full account of BAA's performance during last year's snow fall, Chief Executive Colin Matthews has admitted, as the company's annual results are released, that Heathrow must do better.

The closure of both runways at Heathrow affected the holidays and business trips of hundreds of thousands of passengers.

Talking to File On 4, broadcast tonight (Tuesday 22 February, 8pm) Mr Matthews has admitted deficiencies in the airport's plan for dealing with snow.

He told reporter Julian O'Halloran: "I felt terrible about the situation that passengers were in."

Mr Matthews also expressed his misgivings about a confident account of BAA snow plans which the company had issued in November.

The BAA statement had said: "Heathrow's army of snow ploughs stretch their wings as the snow bites."

And it had boasted of highly trained staff and more than 60 high-tech vehicles being at the ready.

Colin Mathews said: "I regret that statement but we were confident because we had dealt with three quite severe snow incidents quite successfully in 2009 and 2010.

"What happened in December was a much bigger event. In retrospect we should have been prepared for more. We must prepare for intense snow in the future."

The BAA chief was speaking in advance of the outcome of an inquiry the company set up into the Heathrow events. It is expected to report in a few weeks' time.

In the interview, Mr Matthews also revealed the thinking which led him to give up his bonus of just under £1m in the wake of the Christmas chaos.

He said, "If someone loses a flight, a business flight, you get really angry, but when it's your Christmas holiday that you are losing it is really infuriating.

"I didn't think it was appropriate to make complicated explanations or to blame someone else, but I do understand how angry passengers were."

BAA also told the 91Èȱ¬ it was doubling its fleet of snow clearance vehicles to over 100 and it was more than tripling the number of staff trained to operate the equipment. Before Christmas 60 staff were available. By next winter there will be around 200, said the Heathrow operator.

However BAA has come under attack in the File On 4 programme from one of the major airlines using Heathrow.

The chief executive of Virgin Atlantic Airways, Steve Ridgway, said that his company is deeply unhappy over BAA's performance in December and that the airport should have been closed for no more than 24 hours.

He says: "We're extremely angry and frustrated, because Heathrow should not have been closed as long as it was.

"Our reaction was around the frustration and lack of recourse that we airlines have with a monopoly-owned airport like BAA in terms of what happened to passengers, how much it cost us, and how much it cost passengers."

But the airline eventually backed down in the face of a risk that BAA might seize its planes, Mr Ridgway explained. "Ultimately, we do not want to put our flying and our customers at risk."

The Virgin Atlantic chief executive also alleged that, despite snow problems in the previous two winters, airlines had not been fully consulted by BAA over its snow plan in the months leading up to this winter.

"The only engagement we had with the snow plan in 2010 was an exercise in October to look at some aspects of the communication plan. So there was no formal go-through with us in terms of the detail of the plan."

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond told File On 4 that in the short term there is little the regulator or the government can do to discipline or punish BAA, but he says the need for reform is pressing.

"It is urgent. It has been urgent for some time," said Mr Hammond.

"It can be a regime based on regulatory interventions through fines or licence penalties. But much more powerful is to get the regime based on economic incentives."

However Mr Hammond appeared to suggest that two further winters may elapse before tougher regulatory measures are in place.

"I'm afraid it'll be a couple of years before the regime is fully effective."

Notes to Editors

Any quotes used should be attributed to 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4's File On 4. Transcripts are available of the interview with Colin Matthews.

File On 4 is broadcast on 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 on Tuesdays at 8pm and is available as a podcast from .

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