bmi chairman slams BAA over Heathrow
25.04.08
bmi chairman and majority shareholder Sir Michael Bishop, speaking to the Aviation club in London yesterday, said many airlines have 'had enough of the way BAA has behaved' with the new Terminal 5 project that so publicly became a disaster. He also warned that efforts must be redoubled to assure that the new terminal at Heathrow that will replace Terminal 1 (Heathrow East) doesn’t take the same fate as T5.
Sir Michael said that bmi and other airlines at Heathrow are fed up with being treated as second class citizens after ‘being charged through the nose’ for Terminal 5. He also complained that airlines were given only 30 minutes notice about delays of the long-planned moves before they were announced to the press.
He added: 'Events now continue to cause huge reputational loss at Heathrow. And I urge BAA to re-prioritise and redouble their efforts on the Heathrow East project and ensure its completion in time for the opening of the Olympics in 2012 with all the necessary functionality we require.’
However, he made it clear that he wasn’t pointing any fingers at Ferrovial, who came in late in the game to handle T5. He said: ‘We don’t place any blame for sins of the past at the feet of Ferrovial, so recently charged with the management of Heathrow. Indeed in the case of Terminal 5, the die was firmly cast long before the Ferrovial acquisition.'
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