Aviation minister Theresa Villiers said an airport should be fined when it "does let passengers down and doesn't prepare properly for severe weather". (From BBC web site Sunday evening).
Yeh right. Make em pay. Just a couple of problems with this blatant jumping on a bandwagon. Who exactly will end up paying? I mean, where do the airports get their money from. That's right, from Joe Public that's who. The poor sods who have spent 2 or 3 days sleeping on the floor of some airport lounge when they should have been on day 2 of a midwinter holiday. The very people that, at first glance, the idea of fining the airport is supposed to protect. Now it will just cost them more to sleep on the floor of the airport next year.
Problem Two. Let's be fair, airports floors weren't the only place travellers spent an unexpected night or two. What about all the motorists stuck in their cars or in community centres because someone hadn't cleared the roads, that is, hadn't prepared properly for severe weather. And who was that? Well the government that's who. So if you are going to fine the airports for allowing severe weather to disrupt travel plans then how about fining the Department of Transport for the same offence?
2 comments:
I fully understand where you are coming from David but who funds the DfT? Us, the income tax payer I strongly suspect - many of us whom cannot afford to travel by plane or train, or own a car.
Perhaps compensation ought to be paid from whatever the fund is that exists to pay huge sums in bonuses to senior airport officials and from the yearly company profits, shareholders ending up with less?
The airports (and airlines), not to mention credit card companies, lose millions for each day an airport it out of service.
They already have an incentive to keep services running. The fact is that everyone is doing their utmost to keep the airports running, but we don't have the same capacity as nordic countries
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