Returning to an old hobby horse of mine, I had to change terminals at Heathrow so I caught the Heathrow Connect service to get me from terminals 4 to 3. In the old days before terminal 5, you caught the Heathrow Express service which linked the terminals at no cost to you. (You pay only if you went on in to Paddington) Now the Heathrow Express doesn’t stop at 4 only the stop for 1 and 3 and then 5. (For those of you who weren’t aware terminal 2 doesn’t exist as BAA rebuilds it)

In a view that surprised nearly everyone, probably including BAA themselves, there has been a ruling that BAA may not have to sell of one of their Scottish airports (Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow) nor dispose of Stansted. BAA appealed against the decision of the Competition Commission and the Competition Appeal Tribunal has agreed with BAA.

Why?

Because of a technicality.

Some people were trapped on Eurostar trains for 12 hours and claim they were told nothing. It has been said that one driver even locked himself in his engine cab. Allbury Travel went into liquidation yesterday (they own Libra and Argos Holidays) and passengers claim they were kept in the dark. On Thursday when flyGlobespan went into liquidation I was at Glasgow Airport and there was no information at their desk in the airport. When there was the terminal 5 debacle earlier this year, one major complaint was the delay of both British Airways and BAA to come and talk to passengers.
What is clear in that each of these cases information was not given to the passengers quickly enough for them to feel that that they were kept up to date.

From today Gatwick is no longer run by BAA. Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the owners of London City Airport, take over the running of the airport so what might be expected? In the short term, probably only cosmetic changes like signage, uniforms and names will alter. But what should happen in the longer term?

A problem with the old owners was that, by owning so many airports around London, competition was stifled so the first thing I should like to see is a wider net of destinations. Bring back more North American and Asia Pacific flights so there will be a true alternative to Heathrow and don’t let Gatwick drift into just being an airport for charter holiday flights and no-frills airlines.

You will probably all be aware by now that Gatwick has been sold by the owners BAA to the owners of London City Airport, Global Infrastructure Partners. GIP paid about £1.5 billion which in normal times would be a bit of a bargain. Since it was virtually an enforced sale I suppose the other bidders, who included Manchester Airport Group, offered even less

BAA has decided that it isn’t going to give up any of it’s airports without a fight. It seems that they have decided to waste more of their money pursuing this idea despite the fact that, to just about everyone else, it seems like a good idea to stimulate a bit of competition. Could it [...]

On this, the 105th anniversay of the first manned flight by the Wright Brothers, the Competition Commssion (CC), has issued a report (over 107 pages plus appendices) saying these three airports should be sold;- maybe.Why maybe?Because this isn’t the final report. That is due next February/March so I suppose the CC could change its recommendations. [...]

Cast you minds back. To 6 months ago. When Heathrow’s Terminal 5 opened and there were all those problems. Seems a long time ago since then we have reported that. Like all new openings, there were teething problems and those may have been worse than elsewhere or may have been overblown by the media. Now [...]