Disabled passengers who are stranded on aircraft at Heathrow will not be compensated, according to the boss of the airport.
The comments came after BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner criticised Heathrow after he was left waiting for 100 minutes because his wheelchair had been misplaced by ground staff.
Heathrow chief executive John Holland Kaye told the BBC: “I don’t think it’s reasonable that we should take financial responsibility.”
However, he said Heathrow would aim to help disabled passengers off aircraft within 20 minutes of landing.
Gardner has used a wheelchair since being shot six times by militants while reporting in Saudi Arabia, in 2004.
He said that airports would only listen to disabled passengers if there was a financial penalty.
In response, Holland-Kaye committed to a new target for disabled people to be disembarked from aircraft.
He said Heathrow would now be working to a standard of “20 minutes”, after taking advice from Gardner.
He clarified that this would be “20 minutes after everybody else has got off” the aircraft.
Holland-Kaye compared his job to that of the “mayor of a city” and promised to fix flaws in Heathrow’s provision for disabled passengers.
He said the airport needed to make sure it had the right information on passengers, to ensure the correct help was available once a plane had landed.
He explained that, in the case of the BBC journalist, the wheelchair had been mislabelled and therefore did not go to the correct gate.
Holland-Kaye said he would be using Heathrow’s influence to help airlines and their handlers improve their service and prevent such situations occurring in the future.
He apologised to any other passengers who have had a poor experience, and encouraged those affected to get in touch.
Holland-Kaye said the airport was “committed to making sure that any passengers travelling through Heathrow will have a good experience, and will be treated with dignity and respect.”
“We want to be seen as the best airport in the world for passenger service. We’ve made huge improvements, but clearly we have more to do, and I’m committed to doing that.”