Review sought after Stansted demo

Plane Stupid apologised for disrupting individual journeys
Ryanair has called for an urgent review of security at Stansted airport after protesters cut through a fence and caused major disruption to flights.
The Irish-based budget airline has criticised the airport's operator, BAA, for its handling of the incident.
Police arrested 57 people, and 52 flights were cancelled because of the protest by environmental campaigners.
BAA said it could not police every inch of the airport all the time, adding it did not want to run it as a "fortress".
Stephen McNamara, head of communications for Ryanair, told the BBC that BAA needed to come clean over the actions of protest group Plane Stupid.
'Suffragette-style'
He said: "There's three very important questions that need to be answered here by the BAA and Stansted.
"They are - exactly why were protesters able to breach security at 3am this morning, why did it take over five hours to remove them from the taxi-way, and why as a result of this... thousands of passengers had their travel plans interrupted by what we see as just the latest management failure at Stansted airport."

There has been a mixture of anger and understanding in response to the climate-change protest, which the demonstrators said was prompted by their fears over the environmental impact of expansion at the Essex airport.
A Greenpeace spokesman said: "The Climate Change secretary Ed Miliband called for a suffragette-style movement to pressure governments to act. Well, he got his wish.
"The suffragettes were disruptive and lambasted by the establishment of the day, but have been utterly vindicated by history, and no doubt it will be the same with Plane Stupid.
"The delays to passengers are unfortunate, but right now we're in the most important hundred months in human history as we try to beat climate change before it's too late - and the government's plans to expand airports could destroy our chances before we start."
'Enormous area'
Plane Stupid has a history of evading strict security while ensuring maximum media attention.
In July, one of the group's activists unsuccessfully tried to glue himself to Prime Minister Gordon Brown at an awards ceremony.
Also earlier this year, demonstrators climbed onto the roof of the Houses of Parliament and unfurled a banner protesting plans to build a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport.

Ryanair told passengers to go home and re-book online
BAA has defended itself against Ryanair's criticism, with commercial director Nick Barton telling the BBC there was never any possibility that the intruders could have reached the runway or planes.
He said: "You should bear in mind, of course, that the runway is about 2,000 acres [8 sq km] in size. It is an enormous area, and we don't intend to run an airport as a fortress."
But Mr McNamara said passengers blamed Ryanair for the delays to their flights because of its visibility, and repeated a call for BAA to be broken up "and Stansted to be allowed to stand on its own".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/7771755.stm

I'm flying with Ryanair next week so have been keeping an eye on their website to see how well they are keeping up with the situation. Interestingly they have absolutely laid in to the BAA. Quite refreshing to see a big company being so frank with their opinions

UPDATE-2:30 pm

Ryanair flights are now operating as normal to and from Stansted Airport.The airport opened at 08:06, after police removed protestors who began demonstrating on the airport taxiway five hours earlier at 03:00 hours.

The closure of Stansted Airport this morning has forced Ryanair to cancel 52 flights out of and into Stansted airport. Passengers booked on these flights can rebook free of charge until 11th December for travel up to 15th December 2008 as detailed below.

Ryanair has called on BAA Stansted to explain why protestors were able to breach Stansted security at 03:00 am this morning and why it took Stansted over 5 hours to remove them from the taxiway. Ryanair renews its call for the break up of the BAA monopoly and the sale of Stansted in order to improve customer service and these BAA cock ups.
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/notic...rity_breach-GB