Airlines need to better fight their corner after disruption caused by the snow chaos and other failures in the UK aviation sector last year hit profits.
The call came from Virgin Atlantic chief executive Steve Ridgway, who claimed that the aviation sector was “taken for granted” by the Government.
Speaking at an Airports Operators Association dinner in London, Ridgway said: “Maybe the burning platform is that our sector is taken for granted by the government and by the travelling public, maybe even by ourselves – and that we need to be better at making our case.”
Given the economic environment many families were already questioning if they can even afford a holiday or not this year, he warned.
Airlines are also facing mounting pressure as competition increases “more intensively in the international market for our slice of the business travel market”.
Ridgway said that the “UK must be seen as a great place to fly from, to and via.” But he raised doubts whether the industry was operating efficiently.
“Now that we have moved through the snowy conditions, it would be nice to think that we can push on with a clear customer-focused agenda…but was it a one off or something deeper, something systemic?
The snow before Christmas “serves a very timely warning to us all,” said Ridgway.
The industry let hundreds of thousands of people down “and we can only restore their faith by delivering world class standards from door to door next time they travel”.
Virgin had originally refused to pay the airport operator BAA fees due until the findings of an inquiry had been published this month but then reluctantly agreed to make the payments.
BAA chief executive Colin Matthews told the Airports Council International conference he felt “uncomfortably distressed about ruining people’s Christmas” and while it had an emergency snow plan, it only catered for six centimetres of snow, whereas about twice that had fallen in about an hour alone.
He said it was important for both the airlines and operator to work together.
Matthews said it took BAA 36 hours just to persuade airlines to give it information on which flights would be going ahead and which would be cancelled so that could be relayed to passengers and potentially avoid them coming to the airport.
He said he has asked about half a dozen of the biggest airline bosses operating out of Heathrow to meet on a regular basis to avoid any future repetition on the same scale.