London Heathrow Airport's Chief Executive, Tony Douglas, is leaving the company, in favour of a new position at construction firm Laing O' Rourke. His departure comes as Heathrow faces much criticism from airlines and passengers alike. Indeed, although Mr Douglas was adamant that his resignation was based on the "great opportunity" offered by Laing, he himself detailed a number of Heathrow's failings in a recent and well-publicised statement. In this, he described the UK's principal airport as held together by "sticking plaster", "bursting at the seams", and that its conditions made him "cringe".

The fact that Heathrow is operating above and beyond its intended passenger limit was, Mr Douglas said, the cause of many of its problems. While he stated that the opening of Terminal 5 - due in 2008 - would greatly improve the situation, a common complaint among the airline community is that BAA (Heathrow's operator), is unprepared to upgrade/modify existing structures. It says that this failing is an additional factor behind Heathrow's lack of space.

One of these, Lyell Strambi, detailed this further - stating: "If you look at facilities like Terminal 2 they are awful and that is a pretty poor effort when this company is making such high profits." Mr Strambi is Virgin Atlantic's Chief Operating Officer.

Earlier in 2007, BAA was accused of running Heathrow in the style of a shopping centre. The claim emanated from bmi's Chairman, Sir Michael Bishop. Yesterday, another executive within the airline sector added his own criticism, highlighting BAA's failure to acquire new service vehicles. To this, he attributed delays in baggage handling, whilst also describing the lack of buses at Heathrow, and the consequent effect this was having on passengers.

The criticism was compounded by Mr Strambi, who stated: "BAA doesn't feel the pain of these problems but we do. Passengers blame the airlines and they avoid London, which is damaging to our business and damaging to the UK."

In response, a spokesman from the airport operator, said: "Nobody wants to see queues at airports. April was our busiest-ever Easter but 97 per cent of passengers queued for ten minutes or less, which clearly shows we are going in the right direction."

As detailed above, Mr Douglas is now set to take up a new position at Laing O' Rourke; one of the primary contractors involved in the construction of Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5.

Source - Airport International Newsdesk

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