Walsh calls on BAA to tackle Heathrow problems

Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, has called on BAA, the owner of Heathrow Airport, to step up its efforts to resolve issues such as overcrowding and lost baggage, describing the experience of passing through the UK's largest airport as unacceptable.

Mr Walsh said he was optimistic that BAA can resolve Heathrow's operational issues, noting that a recent change in management and the opening of Terminal 5 in March offers hope that airport's performance should improve.

"I am not trying to blame all the difficulties on the airport but the root cause of the problems are infrastructure related," he said, adding: "Things will improve when T5 opens but I would like BAA to take a more aggressive stance to be honest."

BA has one of the worst records for flight accuracy and losing luggage amongst the major European carriers due predominantly to problems at Heathrow.

Mr Walsh said that a baggage conveyor belt used to transport customer luggage had broken down nine times over an 11-day period in June, highlighting problems with infrastructure systems at the airport.

BA has added more staff to cope with some of the problems at the airport, employing more people at Heathrow than it ever has before. It employs more than 72,000 workers at the airport and expects to add more. But Mr Walsh called on BAA to add more staff and invest in better infrastructure to improve the customer experience. BAA has increased its staffing levels over recent months as it tries to accommodate more stringent security measures.

Despite problems at Heathrow and the bad summer weather hitting traffic numbers in July, BA reported a strong rise in profits over the first three months of the year. Boosted by cost cuts, lower severance charges, a weak US dollar and improvements to the company's pension deficit, its operating profit gained more than 27 per cent to £263m.

The company maintained its full-year financial targets despite a difficult July, when 13 of its long-haul aircraft were struck by lightning and were taken out of action.