After five days of snowy mayhem, Heathrow is back to regular operations, working with a completely full schedule heading into Christmas weekend. BAA chief Colin Matthews is focusing on the recovery process and in a surprise announcement he admitted he’ll refuse his holiday bonus. The Guardian reports him saying: “I have decided to give up my bonus for the current year. My focus is on getting people moving and rebuilding confidence in Heathrow.”
Mick Rix, the GMB union’s national officer for the aviation industry, said, according to the Guardian: “For once, a British senior director has done the right thing.”
BBC writes last year Mathews took in £994,000 in pay and bonuses, excluding shares. It’s not known how much his bonus amounted to this year.
Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports, has faced heavy criticism over the how long it took to clear tonnes of snow following a massive blizzard on Saturday. The storm brought close to five inches of snow onto the airport in one hour, the BBC reports.
A BBC reporter found criticism has been trained on Heathrow’s lack of snow and ice removal equipment. Heathrow’s “snow fleet” has 69 vehicles, while Gatwick – an airport half its size – has a reported 150.
Prime Minister David Cameron has even thrown a few harsh words towards BAA. He said he is “frustrated” at how long it took to improve the crisis at Heathrow, BBC writes, “while former Labour Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said BAA appeared to have made ‘totally inadequate preparations’.”
According to the front page of the Heathrow website, flights were on schedule Thursday. Their Twitter feed says they don’t have any information yet on what flights each of our 90 airlines will operate on Friday, and they urge passengers to check with their airlines for possible flight delays.
