The managing director of Heathrow airport is stepping down in the wake of the Terminal 5 fiasco, BAA announced yesterday, as Britain's largest airport unveiled its third boss in a year.
Mark Bullock resigned with immediate effect and will be replaced by Mike Brown, managing director of London Underground, at the end of the summer. Heathrow will operate without a full-time chief throughout the busy summer period, with BAA's airport services director, Terry Morgan, taking temporary charge until Brown has served out his notice.
Bullock said in a statement that he decided to quit after his role was downsized in a recent management reshuffle. However, the move comes a week after BAA's chief executive, Colin Matthews, was lambasted by MPs for admitting that he was "not aware" of problems at the £4.3bn terminal in the run-up to its launch. Virgin Atlantic, one of BAA's biggest Heathrow customers, said airlines wanted more consistent management at the airport.
Paul Charles, Virgin Atlantic's director of communications, said: "There needs to be consistency at Heathrow and there has been no sign of it. The sooner we get consistent management and decision making in place, the better."
A senior source at Transport for London, Brown's employer, said the new Heathrow boss was a "good listener" who "gets things done". Matthews thanked Bullock for his performance as managing director - a role he took last summer after his predecessor, Tony Douglas, left BAA to become chief operating officer at the construction group Laing O'Rourke.
"I now look forward to working with Mike Brown and his team as we continue driving service standards across the airport and focus on the important work to transform the facilities we provide for passengers and airlines," Matthews said.
Two senior executives have already left British Airways, Terminal 5's only tenant, in the wake of its failed launch on March 27. Gareth Kirkwood, director of operations, and David Noyes, director of customer services, were fired by Willie Walsh, BA chief executive, last month as he took personal charge of running T5.
Walsh's strategy of taking most of the blame for the disastrous opening, which saw more than 500 flights cancelled when the baggage-handling system failed, shifted last week when he said BAA had compromised BA's Terminal 5 training regime by failing to complete the building on time. "It is clear we made some mistakes and in particular had compromised on the testing regime as a consequence of building delays and this did impact on the Terminal 5 opening," he said.
Walsh and Matthews, speaking to the transport select committee at Westminster, said the new terminal was now working well.
BA underlined its faith in the recovery at the new terminal last week when it said it would move its most profitable Heathrow-New York flights there in June. The airline will also move its services to Abuja, Bengalaru (formerly Bangalore), Beijing, Cairo, Cape Town, Lagos and Phoenix to Terminal 5.
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