BAA, the owner of Heathrow, was publicly shamed by the head of the global air travel industry yesterday over the “embarrassingly low service levels” at its airports.

Giovanni Bisignani, the director-general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said that the only beneficiary of new security rules in Britain was BAA, which was scrimping on providing sufficient staff and equipment to clear security queues.

Mr Bisignani said that the rules, which restrict passengers to one piece of hand luggage and only small liquid containers, were of no practical use.

The criticism from IATA, which represents airlines and the travel industry, puts further pressure on BAA over the way that it manages some of Britain’s most important infrastructure assets.

Kitty Ussher, the new minister for the City of London, expressed concern last weekend that multinational companies would go elsewhere because of hassles at Heathrow.

Airlines are demanding changes. Virgin Atlantic’s chief operating officer told The Times recently that parts of Heathrow airport were “awful”.

IATA’s criticism came as Ferrovial, which bought the former British Airports Authority last year, said that its airport division had contributed €767 million (£519 million) in pre-tax profits in the first half of this year. However, Ferrovial is looking to reduce debt by selling BAA’s duty-free division and rumours suggest that it may be planning to sell Gatwick. Banking sources in London have revealed that a leading European airport is about to be offered for sale and analysts believe that Gatwick is the most likely candidate.

If the London airport does come on the market, a likely buyer is Dubai Aerospace, which admitted last week that it was looking for acquisitions in Europe.

Mr Bisignani’s comments came as IATA announced that global air passenger growth was 6.3 per cent in the first six months of this year. Mr Bisignani gave warning that governments had to remove obstacles to maintain this growth. He said: “A particular focus will be the UK, where unique screening policies inconvenience passengers with no improvement in security. The only beneficiary is the airport operator, which continues to deliver embarrassingly low service levels by failing to invest in appropriate equipment and staff to meet demand.”

A spokesman for BAA said: “It is simply not true to say that we are not investing in security. Since last August we have spent £20 million and added 1,400 new security staff.”

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