Now that the snow has (hopefully!) left us for the foreseeable future, I think it’s time to sit back and have a good think about the aviation fiasco which took hold of us last month and question for example, whether we can expect Heathrow to cope with the additional passengers coming to London for the Olympics in 2012? 

 Lets face it, it has demonstrated a pretty poor record when faced with adverse conditions like snow, strikes and security issues recently.  These have all caused unacceptable disruption to passengers, or in the case of snow, caused the airport to close altogether.

It is well known that BAA would ideally like to build another runway at Heathrow and cite capacity issues as the driver for that, but as recent events show that they can’t manage the airport adequately with the existing capacity, to have increased that would simply exacerbate the problems.

Given the operational difficulties at Heathrow whenever we’ve had adverse weather like snow, strikes and security concerns during peak travel times in the year like Easter, summer and winter breaks, will it be able to cope with the Olympics?”

A Presentation to the Heathrow Airport Consultative Committee (HACC) meeting before Christmas showed that up to 90 per cent of the Olympic family will be passing through Heathrow Airport during two particular weekends in July and August 2012.  In 2012 more than ever, London will be on show to the world and many foreign visitors, including almost all the Olympic family will be using Heathrow airport.  Granted, we’re unlikely to have snow in the middle of summer, but BAA needs to up their game and be fully prepared for every eventuality.  If Heathrow has to close during the Olympics, it will make London a laughing-stock.