An online travel boss has accused British Airways chairman Martin Broughton of calling airport security checks redundant in a bid to take the public’s mind off the airline’s financial results which are due out this Friday.
Airporttransfers.co.uk co-founder Chris Brown criticised Broughton for his statement at this week’s UK Airport Operators Association convention in London that airport checks such as removing shoes and looking at laptops were “redundant”.
Broughton also said that the UK was forced to “kowtow” to the Americans who often did not carry out the same checks themselves on internal flights.
Said Brown: “Whilst the majority of the customer feedback we receive is related to people’s perception of overzealous security checks at airports we would suggest that airport checks are hugely important.
“Many of the checks could be viewed as out-dated but I wonder if Mr Broughton would line up in the queue of people boarding a plane who have had no checks at all, or if he would feel safer being in the queue of people who have gone through the security checks."
“I also wonder how much of Mr Broughton’s comments could be attributed to deflecting attention away from BA’s financial results from the first half of the year, which are due on Friday.”
by Dinah Hatch
