Virgin Atlantic withholds airport fees due to snow

Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic is to withhold airport fees it pays BAA operators due to the “slow reaction” of the airport to last month’s weather catastrophe.

10 January 2011, 12:00am

1 min read

The airline said it would not pay any airport fees until BAA’s full enquiry to be completed by the end of March.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers at Heathrow and other airports were disrupted as a result of the heavy snowfall last December costing the industry over £50 million.

Sir David Begg, BAA’s new non-executive director launched an inquiry into what went wrong at Heathrow airport to have flights grounded for days.

A panel of experts from different airports will judge BAA’s “planning, execution and recovery”.

Heathrow airport’s boss Colin Matthews announced in December that he was to forego his bonus to concentrate on re-building confidence in the airport.