Thomas Cook Group has flown into the row over BAA by claiming the service levels endured by its package holiday customers at Britain's main airports are simply “not good enough”.

Manny Fontenla Novoa, joint chief executive of the £8 billion holiday giant formed by the merger of Thomas Cook and MyTravel in February, said everything about the terminals managed by BAA had to improve.

In a scathing attack today, he said: “The service levels customers are experiencing at BAA run airports are not good enough.

“The reality is that they’ve got to do certain security checks but they should provide more people to do security in order to shorten the queues and the amount of time that people wait.

“Baggage handling is the same, it’s just taking too long for people to get their baggage.

“Having to wait 30-40 minutes for a piece of baggage is not good enough. Waiting 20-30 minutes for your gate is not good enough. All of that experience has got to improve. It’s all about having more facilities, more staff and investing more in the product.”

Thomas Cook Group flies more than six million UK holidaymakers overseas on its charter airlines every year, largely through BAA’s airports in Gatwick and Glasgow.

In a trading statement, the group said the UK market had not recovered as much as it anticipated during the summer despite the dismal weather.

Bookings fell 5 per cent and average selling prices were up just 1 per cent. Mr Fontenla Novoa said demand was strong but blamed the sluggish performance on the effect of the Air Passenger Duty, which doubled in February.

He said the additional £40 million of tax paid by his customers had effectively come off Thomas Cook’s revenue as holidaymakers typically only want to spend a set amount on their breaks.

However, the group said it was still on course to hit full-year targets given strong trading in Northern Europe, where bookings for the forthcoming winter season are up 14 per cent.

Winter bookings in the UK are up 9 per cent year-on-year in the last four weeks and 26 per cent of the available deals have already been sold.

Mr Fontenla Novoa said: “I think we’re beginning to see the first signs of an upturn in the package holiday market for five-to-six years.”

Cancellations and delays caused by Hurricane Dean earlier this month cost an estimated £3 million. Thomas Cook said it expects to beat a €140 million cost-saving target set at the time of the MyTravel deal.

The group has already announced plans to cut up to 2,800 jobs and close 150 travel agents and six offices in the UK. Shares rose 2 per cent to 284.25p.

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