BAA should be punished for disrupting travel plans for tens of thousands in the big freeze, says Philip Hammond
Will Hutton: Heathrow's chaos is indicative of a wider national malaise
Airports could be fined millions of pounds for disrupting passengers' travel under plans being considered by the government.
Transport secretary Philip Hammond said he wanted the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to have new powers after London Heathrow ground to a halt during the big freeze last week, ruining the holidays of tens of thousands of people.
Mr Hammond told the Sunday Times it was unacceptable that BAA, the private company which runs Britain's busiest airport, faced no punishment from the CAA under the current regime.
He said: "There should be an economic penalty for service failure. Greater weight needs to be given to performance and passenger satisfaction."
Ministers are considering an airport economic regulation bill, which would give more powers to impose fines for a wide range of service failures.
Under the existing system, the CAA can impose for failures over passenger queues at security and cleanliness. The maximum total penalty is said to be 7% of airport charges, resulting in a potential sum of �63m.
BAA chief executive Colin Matthews said he would forgo his annual bonus after last week's extended disruption at Heathrow.
The firm, which is owned by a Spanish conglomerate, found itself unable to shift snow and ice from runways and aircraft gates, paralysing the gateway for several days.
Prime minister David Cameron was among those who voiced his frustration at the disruption, and BAA has launched an investigation into the problems.
There were also flight disruptions at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as Gatwick, London Luton and London City airports and across Europe.
The European commission said air travel disruption on the continent was unacceptable and urged airports to "get serious" about better planning for bad weather.
Meanwhile, parts of the UK enjoyed a white Christmas Day as forecasters warned there would be no respite from the cold until the new year.
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and north-east England all claimed to have had Christmas snow ? but forecasters said there was more snow on the ground than came through the air.
Most of the UK saw crisp wintry conditions with clear blue skies and freezing temperatures, with similar weather expected today. It means this month could be the coldest December since records began.
Tomorrow and Tuesday will see temperatures rise, becoming much milder especially in the far west. The south-west could see daytime temperatures topping 10C on Tuesday.
But freezing temperatures could return again by the weekend, forecasters warned.
Brendan Jones, forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "Once we get past Monday there's no seriously cold weather. But at this stage there's nothing very mild coming in either, so 5C or 6C is more likely what we'll see. As we head towards next weekend we've got hints that it'll get colder again."
Yesterday's lowest temperature, -17.1C, was recorded at Castlederg in Northern Ireland.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/26/transport-secretary-plans-fines-airports
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