NYT/AP: Airlines: U.K. Travel Grinding to Halt

[DeepModem Mom]

Airlines: U.K. Travel Grinding to Halt
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 12, 2006

LONDON (AP) -- Airlines warned the British government Saturday that the country's air travel is ''grinding to a halt'' because of tough new anti-terror security requirements. One airline asked for police and army reservists to help with screening.

British Airways and Ryanair canceled scores of flights from Britain to Europe and the United States and blamed airport operator BAA for not investing enough in security systems and baggage screening in the aftermath of new terrorism threats.

BAA, which owns Heathrow and Stansted airports, ordered the cancellations because its systems for screening passengers and checked-in baggage for security threats could not cope with the extra required scrutiny of passengers and their luggage in the wake of Thursday's thwarted threat to bomb up to 10 U.S.-bound aircraft.

Budget carrier Ryanair appealed to the British government to use police and army reservists to speed up searches at overloaded airport security checkpoints.

''If the British government is serious about defeating terrorism and not allowing the terrorists to disrupt normal, everyday British life, then it must provide the additional security staffing -- either police or army reserve personnel -- immediately to prevent London's main airports from grinding to a halt over the coming days,'' said Michael O'Leary, chief executive officer of Ryanair....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Britain-Terror-Airports.html

[Demeter]

1. Just Came Home By Plane

Had to remove my sandals==we will soon be a nation of athlete's foot and plantar wart sufferers.

The three days of hysteria on CNN were nauseating==haven't they ever heard of the dangers of crying wolf?? If they arrested people in the airports, in the act, I'd believe there was a real threat.
This is bullshit. Did they even find any "chemicals" capable of creating an effective weapon?

I think not. There was no report of such a thing, to begin with.

[zonkers]

3. Maybe the terrorists plan all along was to spread really bad Athletes foot

???

[DRoseDARs]

2. Wait, so the British airports are privatized? n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Not only privatised in the 80s; bought 2 weeks ago by a Spanish company

BAA, the owner of Heathrow, has dismissed fears that its new Spanish owners, Ferrovial, may be rethinking their £10.3 billion purchase of the airport group.
...
Ferrovial has had control of the British airports group since July 29 and shares in the company will be delisted on Tuesday. Ferrovial said that it was far too early to know what impact any new measures might have on the business.

BAA’s revenues from retail reached £862 million last year, of which £385 million came from its subsidiary, World Duty Free.
...
But analysts said that given Ferrovial’s highly geared purchase of the airport group any fall in revenues could cause problems. Gert Zonneveld, analyst at Panmure Gordon, said: “If no duty free drinks are available that is quite a severe impact because it’s such a money maker. If airports see revenue from this decline they may have to increase the landing fees they charge to recover that income.”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9077-2309127,00.html

If you haven't been to a British airport, you may not realise how pervasive the Duty Free shops are - once through the security check, the passengers are treated as captive customers for an hour, stuck in a shopping mall they are not allowed to exit. If BAA have to employ people to search them, rather than sell them booze, their entire business model is ruined.

Oh, and by the way, BAA completely runs Indianapolis's airports, so that was all sold to the Spanish a couple of weeks ago. In addition, BAA runs the shopping malls at various other American airports, but not the real airport operations.

[chascaz]

4. The Terrorist's have already "WON" - IMHO

When they can play our govt. like a rusted trombone, and cause our own govts. to curb our freedoms, they HAVE INDEED WON ALREADY. How long will it be before the next "threat" closes down our Movie Theatres, or Amusement Parks? What if they uncover a plot to attack crowds at MacDonalds'? Will they shut down all the fast food restaurants in America? Where's it going to end? There is only one destination that this road goes to, and it's called FASCIST DESPOTISM and a POLICE STATE. And we're already alot furthur down that road than most Americans will admit. FEAR FEAR!

Peace - :)

[Kailassa]

7. The terrorists won when they staged a coup

and got Shrub declared president.

[CJCRANE]

5. This huge terror alert

was an attack on the British economy by its own govt.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. The fact that there is no threat anymore (if there ever was one)

must make this thing doubly hard to swallow.