Thomas Cook boss slams Gatwick over snow closures
03.12.10
The boss of holiday company Thomas Cook has criticised Gatwick Airport for shutting down in the snow, the Sun reports. Manny Fontenla-Novoa said the airport was woefully unprepared for the blizzards that forced it to close and that the closure was making the UK a laughing stock.
The tour operator had to put six plane-loads of holidaymakers — 3,000 passengers — on coaches so they could continue with their break. He told The Sun: ‘It's disappointing. I've got people from Sweden and Germany here today and they just laughed at us. Stockholm was something like minus 22 degrees and it was fine. A bit of snow here and everything comes to a standstill. Gatwick has to invest in equipment — this is the second time in a year this has happened now.’
However, David Learmont, editor at Flight Global magazine, told the newspaper that there was not enough bad weather in Britain to justify spending ‘big bucks’ on measures to counter it. The airport said that it has invested £300,000 in equipment to combat snow and ice in the last year. Rival Heathrow spent £500,000, and reamined open.
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