London Heathrow Airport was "totally unprepared to recover from any major incident" and operator BAA "underinvested" in snow equipment, according to a UK Government report on the severe winter weather that brought the airport to a standstill in December 2010.
The transport select committee added in its report that "every airport operator must now be pushed to plan properly for bad weather so that people are not left stranded and without even basic supplies in airport terminals for days on end".
The UK Government should oversee airport planning for incidents including snow-related disruption, particularly at Heathrow, and should review airport regulations "to ensure they take account of this", said the report.
It also said that airport operators should be able to reclaim the cost of caring for stranded passengers "when airlines fail to discharge their responsibility to do this".
While BAA welcomed the last two points, it rejected the report's conclusion that Heathrow was unprepared.
"This is contrary to the findings of the Begg inquiry which found that BAA had historically 'demonstrated its ability to respond well to earlier weather events' and also contrary to the evidence from the airspace closure caused by volcanic ash in 2010," said BAA.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
