Morning:
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The state of London's airports has long provoked anger. Normally it's Heathrow that gets the flak. But flying to and from Gatwick this summer I confess to being shocked. The place was a shambles.
The lifts from the dropping-off point up to check-in were out of action, so we had to lug our luggage up the ramps — not easy with small children in tow. At the counter, we were told to take our tennis bag to the bay for oversized luggage.
Nobody was there. When we asked, we were pointed to another check-in zone, far away from ours. Result: tennis rackets and kit were lost in transit.
In the terminal, there were shops and cafes galore, and lines of harrassed- looking people. There weren't enough seats for them to rest their tired legs (it was 4.30am).
On the way to the gate, the travelator might as well have not been there — it simply wasn't working. As with the lifts, no explanation was offered. Goodbye from the UK, please return soon.
Coming home, the arrivals hall was a mass of scaffolding without a workman in sight. With its low ceiling and dull lighting, and officials standing around, it's how I imagine the processing area for new entrants to one of Her Majesty's prisons rather than travellers. Again the lifts were off-limits. Welcome to the UK.
When I shared this experience with a friend he was on his mobile phone, on the Stansted Express, heading for an Italy-bound flight. Except there was nothing express about it — the service crawled through Essex, he missed his plane and had to turn around and take the slow train — sorry, express — back to London.
What links both Gatwick and Stansted, apart from being complexes in desperate need of love and attention, is their owner, BAA. They also happen to be both up for sale.
The Competition Commission ruled in February this year that BAA had to sell them plus one of its Scottish airports to lessen its monopoly hold over British air travel.
BAA is in no rush to sell. For Gatwick alone it is seeking £1.5 billion. The highest offer it is thought to have had is from a consortium led by Manchester Airport (which could not be faulted the last time I flew through there) and Borealis, the Canadian infrastructure fund, for £1.4 billion.
BAA is not prepared to go any lower and the talks have stagnated. Meanwhile, it is appealing the watchdog decision, with the case due to be heard in October.
So Gatwick and Stansted find themselves in limbo. They are like houses that are on the market — unloved and decaying, with the seller unlikely to invest heavily in them if they're being sold. The passengers, too, are going nowhere fast.
The prospect of any immediate improvement is non-existent. BAA, now part of Ferrovial, the Spanish group, has debts of £12 billion. Don't be surprised, therefore, if not so much as a lick of paint is applied to Gatwick and Stansted.
That's not to say BAA does not know how to make money. This week the company announced a tripling of losses at its London airports for the first six months of this year, to £545 million. But examine the results more closely and a very different picture emerges.
That deficit was due to the firm's pension scheme being revalued downwards and some other exceptional, one-off items being taken into account. In fact, earnings at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted were up 28 per cent to £469.9 million. This despite a 7.4 per cent fall in passengers.
How BAA is able to work this feat is akin to magic — of the decidedly black variety. It pushed up landing charges by 24 per cent for the same period. The airlines have complained that these fees, applied to every passenger using the airports, bear no relation to inflation and are excessive. The company's response? Tough.
Likewise, the recession has not dented BAA's knack of extracting cash from the poor souls forced to negotiate the hell of its airports. Its net retail income per passenger — the revenue it receives from the bars, restaurants and shops — rose 7.3 per cent.
It has long been the claim of cynics that BAA is more interested in turning the spaces it owns into profit-jingling retail malls than in the comfort of its customers. With that too goes the thought that the longer the delay, the more time passengers spend in its airport and the greater its income.
BAA may have whopping debts but it is saying it does not need to sell Gatwick. Heathrow is doing so well (or as Colin Matthews, BAA's chief executive, phrases it in carefully-couched corporate speak, “Heathrow continues to show its resilience”) that the company does not need to engage in the aviation equivalent of a car boot sale. It will try to get the Competition Commission order revoked.
That process will take an age, by which time the industry may be looking rosier again and if BAA is still forced to sell, it will hope to get far more than the current asking price.
Where this leaves Gatwick, Stansted and their beleaguered users, of course, is in no man's land. While Heathrow continues to be upgraded, Gatwick and Stansted languish and become the ever-poorer relations. Government ministers, captains of industry and celebrities tend not to notice as by and large they fly to and from Heathrow, not to the airports favoured by charter carriers and budget airlines.
It's a typical British mess: a fudge of bureaucracy, laborious procedure and uncaring politicians and officialdom. BAA should have been broken up at the outset when it was privatised but that didn't happen: now an attempt is being made to right that wrong, to create the competition the market so badly needs.
Honestly, though, no one at the top is really that bothered — no muscle is being applied to ensure that occurs quickly.
No other developed country would treat its airports in this fashion (compared with Gatwick, Newark, the second airport for New York, is a jewel — modern, gleaming, comfortable, spacious, easy to negotiate).
More to the point, they wouldn't subject their people and visitors to such conditions. But we do — and BAA is allowed to get away with it.
Reader views (8)
You are all missing the basic point that everybody in this country in with any authority appears to be in it for all they can get.
Bosses of company's are only interested in one thing....profit. they really really don't care what you or i think because they know that deep down British people are to damn lazy to stand up,make a fuss and get things changed.
will any of you really book your next cheap holiday from an airport that gives good service although it may cost more or be further away...No..you wont.
Most execs etc are wealthy anyway, even if they get the sack for poor service they get more severance than most of us earn in 10 years. They really don't care and think that the general public are insignificant.
Nothing will change because nobody will stick together to change anything.
All we do is moan amongst ourselves and put up with it.
- Neil, Norwich Norfolk
All London airports are abysmal.
We pay the highest "airport taxes" in the world and get the worst service in the world. Even Terminal 5 is a disaster. I was appalled to find a couple of weeks ago that after passing through passport control, all the gentlemen's toilet seats appeared to be missing! What is going on? I could not imagine people stealing these and taking them on planes... so must not have been fit for purpose.
When you return, the new logo of UK Border may be new but the bare concrete and threadbare carpet are just a joke. Civil servants never get it, as they never have to use the service. I thought returning to Heathrow that any nominal 3rd world Country has a better welcome at the airport than Heathrow.
Nulabour, what a disaster. Working for a European company, I see that my contribution is negatively valued by this useless government. After getting up at 2:30 in the morning on Mondays to catch the first flight to Europe to compete with my peers in Europe, I get home on Friday night to find the same irritating incompetence that I am sure is designed to make people like myself give up competing for Britain and British jobs. I am so envious of my European colleagues, who have transportation and healthcare that works and is cheaper than the dross we get in the UK. They also pay less tax and stealth taxes are truly a Gordon Brown invention. Roll on the election to get rid of these fools.
- Stephen, Swindon
When I come back to the UK from Eastern Spain I drive up to Le Havre and ferry across. Totally stress free and lo I have a car at my disposal for the entire time. Flying nowadays is for the birds. Yes it takes 2 days to travel up but hey I'm on holiday.
- Ayliff Mcnab, Spain
The debate is a trifle myopic. The travelling public need to realise that aviation is not going to be the mass transit system for all that Nu-Labour would have you believe they are fighting for joe publics right to fly. Not withstanding the very clear evidence that flights are taken by people with average earnings in the 30-40k range, or the fact that with a very real oil supply challenge electrified rail will be the short haul transit system of choice in Europe with aviation focused exclusively on Long Haul destinations. The very real health implications for people who live around airports (for London thats in excess of 2 million souls) are also going to mean new solutions will have to be found. Politicians are trying to avoid having to confront what they already know - aviation emmissions (driving to and from, aircraft and premises) have created illegal levels of pollution around Heathrow and that noise levels breach World Health Organisation recommended levels for hundreds of thousands. Given all this the 'lipstick on a pig' approach of succesive governments is guaranteeing Heathrows failure as a hub not ensuring UK plcs success as a HUB aviation center.
- Christian Ball, London UK
What happens if the flu scare puts off passengers travelling to the UK? Lots of uncrowded BAA airports? Overcrowding problem solved.
- Mark, Venice, Italy
I think it is baffling that both Heathrow and Gatwick have all this (non) organised safety and security checks which they do day in day out and learn absolutely nothing. They neither ease or improve the processing. I am convinced the people who are in charge of airports never actually fly anywhere. Apart from the horror of the processing, the herding, the people shouting instructions, the notices of threat everywhere, they are generally not even clean. How can it be possible that this compan is not accountable or embarrassed by the impression we give to our visitors...god knows as a resident I blush everytime I pass through and that is very often.
- Bernieb, Bromley
Back then there were vested interests. now there are vested interests. Neither the traveling public nor for that matter the competitions commission, come into it. its all a charade/illusion designed to appease, just like Scrutiny/Accountability/Ombudsman etc.
besides how dare YOU fly? your not a celeb, don't you know flying damages the environment and therefore is only for royals/politicians/expence accounts and of course celebs (all of whom will of course lecture you on the error of your ways)
You should have taken the train to Gravesend for 2 weeks Barbecue summer break. Don't be so selfish again.
- 'King Kev Maynard, Bury Lancashire
I recently flew Gatwick to Inverness with Easyjet. The Easyjet queue stretched from one side of the South Terminal to the other and it took 50 minutes of shuffling to get to the front of it. Security was quicker than at Stansted, but you still have to take off your belt and shoes etc. I take the view that I'm a paying customer and shouldn't have to put up with this.
The return flight was delayed by an hour and we were disembarked through an area that passengers were leaving from. We had to queue because we had to be photographed and issued with chits of paper to get through it. The baggage reclaim was a small straight conveyor and was awkward and delayed.
This simple internal trip was aggravation both ways. Can't say I'm in a rush to fly again.
- Alan In Bow, London
