Cashing in on queues

Yesterday's 90-page report on Heathrow and Gatwick makes tough reading for most air passengers, stuffed as it is with acronyms and abbreviations (HAL, GAL, STAL, ADI, FGP - all come swimming past within the first three paragraphs) and jargon. For managers at BAA, the company that owns London's two main airports, it will have been even harder to take - but that is because of the caning they get.

"Important aspects of BAA's performance have been poor" finds the paper published by the Competition Commission. The passenger queues, which often stretch out of the terminal and most of the way to the car park, come in for particular stick. By failing to manage them the airport operator has caused "unacceptable delays to passengers, crew and flights". That leads the regulator to propose a more stringent regime on queues - with maximum waiting times and higher fines for keeping passengers waiting. Along with a crackdown on its performance, BAA also faces a cut in the returns it is allowed to make on any investment. No wonder that company bosses were yesterday sporting faces as long as those legendary queues.

Very little of this will be news to anyone unfortunate enough to use Heathrow or Gatwick. Airlines and passengers have long complained about poor service. "Heathrow hassle" is a big worry for Kitty Ussher, the City minister, who thinks it could deter foreign executives from coming here to do business. Even BAA admits Heathrow is a mess. So what has the Civil Aviation Authority, our main airport regulator, done to improve things? Nowhere near enough. Funded by the trade it is meant to be supervising, the CAA has become a docile watchdog. Asked years ago by the Competition Commission (to which it reports) to force BAA to auction its duty-free concessions, the CAA instead let the company hold on to them. Airports are primarily hubs for flying, but Heathrow, Gatwick and the rest are now big retail businesses. The result is that BAA actually profits from keeping passengers waiting. And while the commission certainly has the right answer in cracking down on queues, it does raise the question: why did the airport watchdog not propose such a simple solution years ago? If the CAA is only now reducing the returns it allows airports, that may indicate that they were set too high before. Certainly they were juicy enough for a Spanish firm, Ferrovial, to come along and snap up the BAA chain.

Our politicians have shied away from acting in what used to be a state-run business. But airports are important both for security and for national image: these chaotic, crammed boxes are the first things visitors see. They are too important to be treated as just another business.