In November I used the new T5 auto luggage drop facility,
Yes, so did we the other day. Very nice and easy, but here's a cautionary note for the unwary.
The first of our two bags went through OK, 18 Kgs. Put the second one on the scale, dear me, 24.5 Kgs, please pay £65.00. Called over a charming staff member, but she could do nothing, it's a case of "computer says no". So we cancelled the transaction, grovelled about to transfer a few Kgs to our hand baggage, and sent the case on its way.
This is where the human contact, aided by some common sense, would normally have meant the two cases being accepted by a human bag drop operator or check-in agent, certainly with BA at T5, in a hangover from pooling days.
The exercise of transferring weight from one bag to another is pointless and stupid.
The ethics of demanding £65 for an additional 1.5 Kg is another matter. If an airline believes that it is acceptable to punish its customers in this way may God help it, because I won't. It might look clever on some bean-counter's spreadsheet, but all it does for me is confirm what I sadly suspected, that BA under its present ownership and management is in a race for the bottom. When I was on the payroll, admittedly decades ago, the management may have been inefficient, but at least they were decent and understood how to retain customers. The present bunch seem determined to lose them.