Airports closings in UK cost 24 m

The severe cold weather in December that closed the Heathrow airport and others temporary has put a costly price tag for the disruption caused by snow . Heathrow airport loss was 19 m out of the 24 m. Colin Matthew , the BAA’s chief executive, apologized for the disruption that the bad weather caused and said,”we are sorry for the flights that had to be canceled as a result of the snow.” he also said he would not take his bonus for 2010 because of the unacceptable conditions passengers had to endure during the delays in travel. Thousands of air passengers were delayed and had to spend hours at the airports trying to catch a fight to there destination in December. The amount of passengers handled at UK airports are down 10.9 from a year ago .The BAA reported that only 7.2 million passengers had used the six UK airports in December.  The severe weather was almost entirely the cause of the drop in passenger traffic the BAA said. Steep falls in passenger traffic at almost all airports were felt in the UK with Heathrow down 9.5%,the BAA largest airport ,Southampton airport down 22% and Edinburgh airport down 18.4% .Mr Matthew announced just before Christmas that  an inquiry to establish the  lessons could be learned from the disruption would be published on March 11. He also said,”The cost of any disruption to BAA’s airports is significant and a strong financial incentive for us to continue to make Heathrow more resilient.”