International Air Transport Association (IATA) chief Giovanni Bisignani was scathing in his assessment of airport services supplier BAA following news that the UK Competition Commission had launched an inquiry into the company.

"The UK Competition Commission has confirmed what every traveller through a BAA airport knows: that it needs fixing desperately and fast," IATA's director general and CEO said.

BAA owns seven airports: Four in the South of England - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Southampton; and three in Scotland - Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

"The current airport structure and regulatory system is not working. Lack of investment by the BAA airport monopoly is delivering embarrassingly low service levels on everything from security wait times to baggage delivery and almost everything in-between. This must change."

Bisignani said the regulator had failed to put in place effective incentives to deliver acceptable service levels. This had the result of making Heathrow "an out-of-control monopoly that gets away with pocketing a 42 percent margin at the expense of the 68 million beleaguered passengers using its poor facilities each year".

"The Competition Commission's inquiry will play a critical role in defining the best long-term airport structure to deliver world-class airport facilities at the most important global hub," he said.

"At the same time, we cannot wait a year to start improving. Heathrow traffic is down 1.7 percent while the rest of the world is growing. The unfortunate reality is that passengers are avoiding the mess at Heathrow and this impacting the UK's competitiveness."

The UK Office of Fair Trading's position is that in Scotland, BAA's ownership of Edinburgh and Glasgow limits competition between these two airports; and that in the Southeast of England its ownership of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted limits competition to promote the delivery of extra capacity in a timely and efficient manner.