Come Fly With Me (eventually)

I was supposed to be flying to Ireland from Heathrow on Sunday to see family for Christmas.
Which , as you will have guessed, didn't happen. And whilst I was probably the only person in the country holding airline tickets who was actually relieved by this news (I am full of flu so was going to have to miss it anyway) I'm no less horrified by the outcome. And I realise I am one of the lucky ones.

Yes apparently I'm going to get a refund on my original ticket. But in order to actually get to see the rest of my family before 2011 I have had to buy another ticket in the mean-time (the airline's website wasn't allowing me to simply change the dates of my original ticket like it was supposed to- good start), which, because of the laws of supply and demand (not much supply, plenty of demand) has cost me £75 more.

It seems to me like the airline are doing ok- they are making plenty of money by charging people more for tickets that are now something akin to gold dust. BAA (who run Heathrow airport) are also doing ok, because despite the moeny they may have lost over the past few days, they made pre-tax profits of nearly a billion last year (and spent only £500k preparing for the snow) so I think they will somehow pull through.

It seems like its the customers who have ended up with the short straw here. People who have missed their chance to go home for Christmas, who will not see family and friends at this important time of year. Customers who despite being organised and getting a reasonably priced ticket for December,  have not only been massively inconvenienced, and now have to pay through the nose to get home on another ticket.

Why aren't BAA (or the airlines) covering these additional costs? Why haven't they been coming up with more ideas/better ways to get people home?  They seem to simply have delivered the bad news and sat back, because they know they can. Or at least they think they can. Don't let BAA away with it, vote with your feet and fly from Gatwick next time- they spent £7m preparing for the snow and were operating at 90% capacity whilst Heathrow ground to a halt.

BAA- Bah humbug indeed.