Britain mulls new airports law
British ministers said on Sunday they want to introduce new laws to allow regulators to fine airports for travel disruption, after a pre-Christmas cold snap all but shut down Heathrow Airport last week.
Philip Hammond, the transport minister, told the Sunday Times that regulators should have tougher powers to punish airports who fail passengers, after thousands were forced to sleep at Heathrow when heavy snow grounded flights.
"There should be an economic penalty for service failure," he said. "Greater weight needs to be given to performance and passenger satisfaction."
Hammond said it is unacceptable that BAA, the Spanish-owned operator of Heathrow -- the world's busiest airport for international passenger traffic -- will face no punishment from the regulator under the current system.
At the moment, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) can only impose fines in specific categories, such as for how long passengers queue at security, seating availability and cleanliness.
This is not a far stretch in the UK of today. Britain has become the most secular society in the west and their abandonment of God and faith increases daily. The UK long ago reached the level of secular absurdity therefore, something like this is not really shocking or surprising.
Certainly weather isn't an act or cause of anything. Unless of course it is a failure of service and a means to collect further taxation and penalty. And besides, the liberal view of all societal problem solving is rooted in taxation, legislation and penalty. It will be interesting to see how this turns out, as if passed into law, this will surely be the death knell for air travel in the UK.
So how long before we hear...."Parliament save the Queen!"
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