Sphinx Solutions Talks On Heathrow Airport May Not Cope During Olympics

April 17, 2012 - PRLog -- Sphinx Solutions commented “This is a huge concern for tourism and everyone wanting to come over and see the Olympics, This could bring on massive delays and unhappy tourists.” MPs warned that very long queues could deter tourists from returning to the UK in the future Related Stories Heathrow Airport may struggle to cope with extra passengers arriving during the London Olympics, MPs have warned. Culture Select Committee chairman John Whittingdale said not enough thought seemed to have been given to ways of coping with long queues at immigration.

Mr Whittingdale said the MPs "did not leave the briefing confident that Heathrow was ready to cope with the arrival of a huge number of competitors, Olympic family and visiting tourists in timely fashion.” A managing director at Sphinx Solutions said “This is a tad worrying and we hope that they can pull it off by the time the Olympics start.”

"The second impact may be that planes cannot unload their passengers into the terminal due to capacity being exceeded. This would lead to circling in the air, planes being left on runways or planes blocking gates." A director at Sphinx Solutions commented “If this were to happen it would hurt the economy and tourists meaning that tourists could be up in the air for longer than intended and that this would cost Heathrow more for the planes would consume more fuel than they needed to for the journey.”

The culture committee's concerns follow warnings from four airlines - British Airways, bmi, Easy jet and Virgin Atlantic - that passengers could face "severe delay and disruption" during the Olympics. Sphinx Solution a local company commented “These are four major airlines that need to be always running on time, if this happens tourists will miss out on some of the Olympics.”

"Tourism could be adversely affected for years to come if people have to wait for an unacceptably long time to get through border control," said shadow Olympics minister Tessa Jowell. “To act will put at risk all the economic benefits that the Olympics have the potential to bring." A managing director at Sphinx Solutions stated “We hope that this does not happen and that all of you can make it to the Olympics and enjoy yourselves; also we would like to see the economy benefiting from this.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk