Leading article: Stranded passengers and poor service

If it's not one thing that blights holiday travel in Britain, it's another. This Christmas it's an unusually long spell of freezing fog that is shrouding the world's busiest commercial airport, just as a record number of people are trying to get somewhere else in time for the festivities.

And, as with the strikes over rosters, the Gateway Gourmet dispute and the alleged airline terrorist plot - at peak travelling times all - it is the national flag-carrier, British Airways, and the British Airports Authority that find their reputation on the line. However proficient the service in the air, it can be immediately eclipsed by poor infrastructure on the ground.

No one, of course, can do much about freezing fog. It's just better not to travel, and bad luck if you must. Nor can BA be blamed for giving priority to long-haul destinations, where flying is the only option. That this also minimises the bill for compensation makes commercial sense for the company, however seasonally insensitive it might appear. And the cancellation of all BA's domestic services from Heathrow might be brutal, but it does at least introduce clarity. You need not waste your time turning up at the airport.

Where BA and the British Airports Authority must be faulted is in their arrangements for coping with such predictable emergencies. This is hardly the first time that Heathrow airport at holiday time has presented itself to the world more like a poorly managed refugee camp than a world-class port of entry.

For the past two days, communication with the thousands of passengers already clogging the airport has ranged from non-existent to poor. If anyone is putting out messages, they are not reaching those who need them. Accommodation is abysmal. A blanket and a few square feet of airport floor are an insult in such circumstances.

And it is all very well to recommend that those starting from Heathrow should set out from somewhere else. But it is not much use for others, tired from a long flight, unfamiliar with other routes and preoccupied with small children. Even for Britons travelling domestically, it will not be easy to find other means of transport. Close to Christmas, trains, coaches and hire cars are already booked out, and pricing is so structured as to make last-minute travel prohibitive.

It has to be said that any major airport would be sorely tested by the number of passengers stranded at Heathrow. And, in a way, that is the downside of success. This one airport manages to cram so many take-offs and landings into each day, that a relatively small upset has a knock-on effect out of all proportion.

It is true, too, that patterns of travel have been changing. To those millions of people trying to celebrate the festive season with friends and family are now added more millions seeking out exotic destinations abroad. Relatively cheap air travel means more pollution from the skies; it also means more congestion on the ground.

Yet it should not be beyond the capabilities of BA and BAA to devise a strategy for these sorts of emergencies. And it is vital that they should do so. A major world airport - and Heathrow surely qualifies - is the gateway to a country. For many travellers it is their first experience of Britain.

In this competitive, globalised world, it needs, at very least to be sparkling clean and efficient, well-organised and humane. And where passengers are stranded, through nobody's fault, they need clear instructions, adequate facilities, human beings to speak to and websites that work. In the 21st century, this should not be too much to ask.