BAA

God bless the Sunday Times. After exposing a whole host of nonsense from BAA (including how they tried to influence the Competition Commission's report), they've now discovered that BAA faked one of the central claims of the Government's case for expansion.

BAA were given the now-famous "strict, local environmental limits" by the Government, and told that expansion could not take place if either noise or pollution would breach these limits. When it became obvious that the runway would be way too noisy and polluting, they invented a new type of super-jumbo which was uber-quiet and non-polluting.

The plane was going to be so popular that by 2030 it would account for more flights out of Heathrow than any other 4-engined aircraft (including the Airbus A380 and other jumbos). But neither Airbus nor Boeing have any plans for such a plane; nor do engineers think it's even possible to build one. Even the Government was sceptical, but BAA told them there wasn't time to revise the data... so in it went.

As anyone who watches daytime TV will know, debt refinancing is big business. There are millions of companies out there who will loan you money to pay off your existing debts, hiking up the interest rate as they go. Normally it's cash-strapped homeowners with their lives in hock who these loan sharks target, but now it's BAA's turn to suffer as it tries to persuade someone to lend it lots and lots of money.

Financial pundits from investment houses and other rarefied places speculate as to whether the owner of 7 of the UK's airports has any chance of sorting out its debts. Ferrovial took on £10 billion worth of debt to buy BAA last year, and now those money turkeys are coming home to roost. Going cap in hand to its shareholders raised £500 million (far more than Plane Stupid could raise, I assure you!) but even that can't save the ailing company. Now hacks are speculating that if BAA cannot sort its finances out in the next two months, bondholders will be able to take their £3 billion investment back, potentially bankrupting the company.

Amusingly the credit crunch is now being blamed for BAA's problems. Seems there's nothing we can't blame on those irresponsible sub-prime lenders, eh?

Here's a poisoned chalice if ever there was one: BAA are looking for a pair of mugs to take on the roles of 'Heads of Corporate Responsibility' at Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Quite apart from being utterly lacking in any kind of scruples, prospective candidates will also need to be profoundly stupid – BAA is one of the most hated companies in the whole of Britain, and the job entails becoming the smiling face of this celebrated nadir of corporate public relations.

The advert for the post gives a taste of the sort of unsavoury activities that lie in store for the successful applicant. Opening with the line "At BAA, we believe that it's possible for the aviation industry to grow sustainably" – a view that is fundamentally at odds with the conclusions of the UK's best climate scientists – the advert goes on to explain that "whilst representing BAA at external meetings with the local community… you will be the face of our corporate responsibility affairs, and a source of expertise to all affected parties and stakeholders." 'Expertise' here means spin, gloss and lies; 'affected parties' means victims, like the millions of Londoners about to gain noisy flight paths over their homes and schools; and 'stakeholders' include the 2,000 villagers who will be forcibly evicted to make way for the third runway. These terms are probably not meant to encompass the 160,000 people already dying because of climate change each year, or the nations of Bangladesh and Tuvalu which are soon to disappear forever under the rising sea; but they should.

Who'd have thunk it? For years we've been fighting BAA, convinced by their public image of being anti-environment and pro-expansion. Then, just as we were settling in for the long term, they betray us all, revealing a serious eco-streak.

For all our antics, Plane Stupid's greatest impact on emissions was grounding a couple of planes at Nottingham East Midlands Airport back in 2006. This pales in comparision to BAA, who have been systematically monkey-wrenching Terminal 5. They're doing an awesome job - so far grounding over two hundred planes and stranding countless thousands of passengers, preventing them jetting about in an irresponsible manner.

Just think of all those emissions being stopped at source! Of course, as Schnews pointed out this week, all these cock-ups will be solved soon enough and the airports and airlines can get on with earning some serious bucks. But screwing up what should have been the biggest pro-expansion love-in casts a shadow over their ability to handle a bigger airport - and for that, we tip our hat. Trebles all round, gents!