The Observer | Leaders | Our shabby, shambolic airports need a complete overhaul

The Observer | Leaders | Our shabby, shambolic airports need a complete overhaul: "Many people embarking on their summer holiday this morning will have a unique opportunity to consider the wonders that are Britain's airports. They will have such an opportunity because they will almost certainly be trapped in check-in and security queues for hours on end. They might question how such a vital part of our national infrastructure could be so badly run. Not one major airport in Britain has the grandeur of Amsterdam's Schiphol, the efficiency and scale of Frankfurt or the imagination of Charles de Gaulle in Paris. We arrive in architectural celebrations of aviation; we depart from graceless sheds. Even Stansted, a Norman Foster design, is a little more than a glorified warehouse.
Gatwick, the country's second airport, is an entity of unparalleled hideousness, an offence to good taste and an obstacle course of poor layout. It shames the nation that its arrival hall might be the first sight to greet newcomers to Britain.
To be fair to BAA, which runs the UK's three biggest airports, passenger numbers are growing at a rate of tens of millions every year. The company is, meanwhile, spending �1.5bn every year to keep up with demand. But then, to be fair to the passengers, it is not unreasonable to expect some of that investment to translate into a more comfortable travelling experience sooner rather than later.
The same applies to airlines. It is not as if airports are constantly being taken by surprise by hordes of spontaneous jetsetters. It ought not to come as a surprise, for example, that in the summer months people go on holiday. (The clue is in the well-known phrase 'summer holiday'.)
It is presumably within the capability of managers to identify how many will be travelling and when - perhaps by looking at their own ticke"