The winter resilience enquiry launched by the BAA to help it learn from December events at Heathrow is undoubtedly politically correct but raises a few questions.
Can problems arising from overcongestion, insufficient investment in airport equipment, poor process organisation and communication at one of the biggest world airports be resolved (with all respect) by panel of executives from foreign airports that have little similarities with Heathrow? Those involved include the former president of Canadian Airlines International and ex-CEO of Winnipeg airport; CEO of Montreal airport; former CEO of Atlanta and Newark Liberty airports and former CEO of Zurich airport.
The initiative will be surely useful in educational terms, but wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for BAA to seek the advice from neighbouring Gatwick where snowfall from the same cloud was cleared within 5 hours?
And, having in mind the root causes of Heathrow problems described in one of my previous posts, shouldn’t a truly effective enquiry be carried out with active involvement of Heathrow operators, service suppliers, regulators, and passengers?
With every wrong course of action the chances for improvement are pushed further away.
