The Director of BAA, the British Airports Authority, Mr Peter Flypast, has admitted that his company's ownership of several British airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Edinburgh was all a big mistake.
He said: "My wife, Mrs Flypast and I, were talking during the advertisement break in Coronation Street when she said that people are complaining at the incredible bad customer service for both passengers and airlines alike. She mentioned that BAA was one of my companies.
"I had a look in my Filofax that Mrs Flypast bought for me at Christmas 1997, and sure enough, it appears unbeknown to me that I own and have been running many of the UK's airports for the past 20 years.
"I was absolutely gob-smacked, You could have knocked me down with a box of duty-free fags! After all these years in business, I never knew I owned and ran the airports.
"It was only last year when we went on a last-minute deal to Marmaris in Turkey that I said to the wife that the service at Heathrow is appalling. I mentioned that all they seemed interested in doing was renting space for shops and charging over the odds for incredibly bad food. There's nowhere to sit and god help you if your plane is delayed or cancelled.
"And then we went to the opening of Terminal 5, and while we went to Geneva, our luggage went to Peru.
"It is really spooky, but it does explain the reason I didn't get a reply to the sharp letter of complaint I sent to BAA."
