A FORMER security boss at Heathrow has blamed BAA skimping for passenger delays and flight cancellations after the alleged plot to blow up aircraft was foiled.

Norman Shanks, the head of security at the airports operator until 1996, said that queues had increased throughout the year because the company employed too few staff for scanning and searching.

But Chris Fay, who has just stepped down as BAA’s security chief, insisted that staff levels had increased, and said that the alleged bomb plot could not have been forseen.

One senior airline executive said: “In normal circumstances there are up to seven lines in ‘central search’ in Terminal 4. But there have been considerable periods since Thursday when there have been only three or four operating. Clearly it flows from this that we get enormous queues.”

BAA has been struggling with delays in passenger checks at Heathrow for some time. It had to pay £1.1 million compensation to airlines for missing waiting-time targets for security checks in the six months to March. It is required to clear 95 per cent of passengers within ten minutes.

Mr Shanks said: “I have a great deal of sympathy for them over the last four days but had they had more staff on the ground prior to that, it would not have been so bad.”

That criticism was rejected by Dr Fay, a former nonexecutive director of BAA, who chaired its security committee for eight years until last month. “It’s very unfair,” he said. “In the last two years there has been a phenomenal increase [in staffing].” The dispute broke out as air passengers suffered a fifth day of delays despite a slight relaxation in baggage controls after the security threat level was lowered.

As Heathrow attempted to return to normal, thousands of passengers experienced cancellations, delays and confusion. At the world’s’s busiest international airport, 68 flights were cancelled by mid-afternoon, although the total was expected to rise to 120. At Gatwick at least 33 flights were cancelled.

Strict rules continued to apply to outbound flights and arrivals from the US, leaving staff struggling to cope. Rules limiting hand luggage to what could be carried in transparent bags remained in force yesterday at Heathrow and Gatwick, although a ban on laptops, mobile phones and other small electrical items was lifted.

Stansted, Terminal 1 at Heathrow and smaller British airports relaxed security restrictions to allow passengers a single piece of hand luggage. The same rules are expected to apply to the rest of Heathrow and Gatwick by early today. BAA Scotland said that it was looking to lift the hand-luggage ban as soon as possible.

Bans on carrying liquids will remain in place, with the exceptions of prescription medicine, baby milk and liquid baby food. Although the first liquid bomb was exploded by al-Qaeda on a flight in 1994, Heathrow seems to have been unprepared for this risk.

Dr Fay told The Times that contingency plans had been in place. But he said that the ban on liquids imposed by the Department for Transport had come as a surprise. “I would very strongly suggest that part of the rationale where people think BAA is dragging their feet is that they are ensuring to the utmost that everything is done to ensure safety.”

A BAA spokeswoman confirmed that since 9/11 there had been a significant increase in security staff at Heathrow to 1,850. BAA is thought to spend £165 million a year on security, most of it at Heathrow. BAA has, in effect, a monopoly in London. In place of competition, the regulatory Civil Aviation Authority caps landing fees.

British Airways is planning to claim compensation from BAA after cancelling 1,000 flights in five days. The financial impact on the airline has been estimated at £30 million on the first day and £5 million a day since.

BA and Ryanair appear to be squaring up to BAA as part of a campaign to break its monopoly or negotiate a favourable settlement from the next charging review. “It suits BA and Ryanair to say we are inefficient and the charges need to be less,” a BAA insider said.

John Fingleton, chief executive of the Office of Fair Trading, and Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA, are veteran monopoly breakers. When Mr Fingleton was the Irish regulator and Mr Walsh was chief executive of Aer Lingus, they and Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair chief executive, broke up the Irish airports monopoly.

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