The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said yesterday that it has brokered a deal on the way fuel is rationed at London's Heathrow Airport after an oil depot explosion knocked out a third of the

airport's supplies.
IATA said it brokered a voluntary fuel allocation deal between airlines and airport operator BAA after some airlines complained the previous system discriminated against non-UK carriers.The new deal would eliminate the need for some airlines on long-haul flights to make extra stops at nearby airports to refuel. Airlines would continue to be treated differently on short-haul flights, IATA said.
‘The fuel crisis at Heathrow is unprecedented. Today's agreement is a pragmatic solution to a very difficult, complex and unique situation,’ IATA Ceo Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement.
Carriers from the United States, Asia, South Africa and elsewhere have been forced to tanker in large amounts of fuel or to re-fuel at other airports since a fire at the Buncefield Fuel Depot in December cut the airport's fuel supplies by 35%.