UK’s top air bosses trade jibes over fiasco

TWO of Britain’s most senior airline bosses are this weekend locked in a bitter exchange of insults over who is to blame for the summer travel chaos.

Former Heathrow chairman Sir Nigel Rudd and ex-BA boss Willie Walsh have become embroiled in the row after weeks of cancelled flights and passengers being forced to wait hours for their bags.

Rudd has written to The Mail on Sunday after Walsh complained to this newspaper last weekend that Heathrow’s recent performance has been ‘farcical’ and that limits imposed on the number of passengers allowed through the airport was ‘a terrible way of doing business’. He also described Heathrow bosses as ‘a bunch of idiots’.

But Rudd, chairman at Heathrow until 2016, has broken cover to level the score. He says Walsh ‘trashed’ the British Airways brand during his tenure and left it a ‘laughing stock’. ‘I’m relieved to see that the current management team at BA are flushing his approach down the lavatory,’ he added.

Recalling his stint as chair at the airport group, Rudd said he had ‘wanted to fight back’ but that he was advised against doing so. ‘The prevailing view was that we couldn’t as he was our largest customer,’ he added. ‘I wish I had ignored that advice and exposed

‘I’m relieved they’re flushing his approach down the lavatory’

him for what he was – a person that trashed a great brand and created a company that is a byword for poor service.’

Walsh was chief executive of British Airways and then ran its parent, International Airlines Group (IAG), from 2011 until 2021. The 60-year-old Irishman now runs the International Air Transport Association, which represents hundreds of airlines around the world.

He told the MoS last week: ‘I think they [Heathrow] should have been better prepared. It is farcical imposing these restrictions at the last minute on airlines when in many cases they have sold tickets. It is a terrible way of doing business.’

After being informed about the letter’s publication, Walsh last night added: ‘I will continue to hold them to account and enjoy exposing their failures.’

But Rudd, 75, said: ‘The main problem facing the aviation system in Europe this summer is a shortage of airline ground handlers. It is precisely because for too long airlines have squeezed tighter and tighter contracts out of their ground handlers that there is a shortfall of people willing to work for them.

‘Willie would be wise to start by putting all of his efforts into getting his airline members to invest more in their ground handlers rather than passing the buck to someone else.’