As a one-time airport manager (BAA even) I'm with all those who believe that the pathetic excuse "first day, mustn't expect too much" etc etc etc is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to cockups.
THERE IS NO REASON WHATSOVER that it should not go absolutely perfectly on the first day of operation. Indeed it is the one day it should go perfectly.
After that it's all downhill as machines break down and demands increase.
As has been suggested, BAA is a useless airport operating company, under previous and present ownership. Its strategic view that airports are shopping malls with a captive "footfall" is the culprit. There is no-one, no-one, in any position of responsibility who has any experience or knowledge of air transport.
I recall people being vilified from the late 1980's onwards, ie when the shopkeepers took over, for suggesting that an airport's only role was to transfer people from one mode of transport to another as painlessly, efficiently. seamlessly and above all as quickly as possible. Those of us who thought that way were informed by the retailer(s) in charge that we simply didn't understand modern business.
Above all we were told that we should not resist the company objective of increasing dwell time in the departure lounges.
So it comes as no surprise that T5's first day is already a national joke. I really don't blame BA, although they could and should have have the balls to force BAA to do it properly from the time the project started.
BAA will look at the receipts from retail and catering as its only measure of how well the day went.
I heard on Radio 2 at about 2.30 that someone had phoned his wife to say that they had been told to wait 3 hours to collect their baggage after landing. What a fiasco. How shaming for Britain.
And don't get me started on the finger-printing idea. A stupid notion, introduced for the wrong reasons (maximise shopping exposure) by idiots blinded by their shopping obsession to the obvious flaws that would never let it actually happen. Thank God it's gone, but what a way to "run" things.