Virgin pay Heathrow fees after legal threat
05.02.11
Virgin Atlantic has been forced to back down on its plan to withhold up to £10m in fees from BAA for snow-related disruptions at Heathrow in December, after the airports operator threatened legal action. The airline said it has ‘agreed reluctantly’ to pay overdue landing and parking fees to BAA in order to prevent further disruption.
Airlines at Heathrow experienced severe delays and cancellations for days in December after BAA struggled to clear a heavy fall of snow the Saturday before Christmas. Airlines, passengers and the Government criticised BAA after thousands of flights were canceled and hundreds of thousands of passengers were stranded. BAA launched an inquiry and its boss Colin Matthews agreed to forgo his annual bonus. But the operator warned at the time that its conditions of use did not allow any basis for airlines to withhold airport charges.
Virgin announced in January that it would not pay the fees starting in the new year, until it saw the results of the internal investigation into what it described as the ‘excessive’ time taken to resume normal operations at Heathrow. It has now agreed to pay the outstanding fees to BAA, but indicated the matter was not closed.
The airline said yesterday that it had ‘reluctantly’ agreed to pay BAA's overdue landing and parking fees after BAA threatened to ‘take immediate action’ and ‘whatever steps it deems appropriate to recover outstanding sums.’ BAA could have seized Virgin's planes for not paying its bills.
It said in a statement: ‘The current aviation regulatory framework effectively gives BAA carte blanche to decide how to treat its customers, setting underwhelming service quality standards which fail to protect the travelling public. As airlines count the costs of the December disruption, the current system of regulation offers very little opportunity for redress or recourse against the airport operator.’
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