Passengers fume in the chaos of Terminal 5's first day
Flights cancelled and baggage system collapses at BA's £4.3bn showpiece
• Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
• The Guardian,
• Friday March 28 2008
• Article history
•
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...irlineindustry
About this article
This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday March 28 2008 on p2 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 08:29 on March 28 2008.
It was 20 years in the planning, cost £4.3bn to build and its staff underwent six months' training before it opened.
But none of that could prevent Heathrow Terminal 5 from descending into chaos on its opening day yesterday after the baggage system collapsed.
Thousands of passengers had their travel plans disrupted and British Airways was forced to cancel at least 34 flights in and out of the terminal.
The prospects for today were little better as BA staff scrambled to clear an intimidating baggage backlog and work out exactly what had gone wrong.
The disastrous launch was a major embarrassment for both Heathrow owner BAA and British Airways. Travellers were restricted to carrying hand luggage and told that they would have to leave checked-in bags for collection at a later time, or else rebook their flights. Delays at luggage carousels proliferated as queues lengthened to depressing proportions in the departure hall.
The situation worsened in the afternoon as the entire baggage handling operation ground to a halt under an overwhelming volume of backed-up luggage, triggering angry scenes at BA desks as passengers swamped staff with complaints.
Just hours after BA's chief executive, Willie Walsh, had toured the terminal promising a new era for Heathrow travel, the airline was forced to apologise once again for farcical conditions at Britain's biggest and busiest airport.
"British Airways flights from Heathrow Terminal 5 will depart with hand baggage only due to problems associated with processing customers' baggage," said the airline in a statement. "British Airways apologises to customers for the problems during Terminal 5's first day of operations following one of the most complex and largest airport moves in history." BA said customers not yet checked-in for travel would receive a refund or could rebook.
A series of factors were behind yesterday's meltdown:
• Baggage handlers' IDs were not recognised by computers and they were not able to log on to the handling system, resulting in the three flights taking off without bags
• The handlers also could not get where they were supposed to go because they could not get into the car parks or get security clearance
• Amid confusion over the layout of the new terminal, bag handling teams were unable to make good the delays, which left passengers in arrivals while their bags waited on planes
• Problems were exacerbated by a lack of the baggage storage bins that are loaded on to planes. Carousels loading luggage also broke down
• By the afternoon, the already crammed system became overloaded and a ban on checking-in luggage was issued
• Delays in loading and unloading planes led to delays in departures and arrivals, forcing BA to cancel 34 flights to ensure that its jets start in the right positions to run a normal timetable today
BA blamed the calamity on "teething problems", but found little sympathy from many of the 40,000 people who passed through T5 yesterday.
Kate Adamson, 39, travelling from Frankfurt with her daughter Olivia, five, gave up on her luggage after waiting more than an hour-and-a-half in the morning. Adamson, who was visiting her parents in Maidenhead, Berkshire, said: "I am furious. We had a 50-minute flight from Frankfurt and then we had a 90-minute wait. The luggage system seemed to have packed up completely. Staff have been really surly and there has been no announcement. One BA woman in there was saying there was a technical problem. I've given up. They can send my bags on."
Producer Sir George Martin, famous for his work with the Beatles, was among those caught up in the difficulties. He said: "When I came here I was very excited about the new terminal, but not now."
Matt Duffy was stuck on a flight arriving into Terminal 5 from Glasgow for more than an hour - and then when he was transported to the terminal, the wheelchair user was met by a kerb. "I couldn't even get into the building without getting up a step," he said. "It is totally unbelievable as far as I am concerned."
BA has exclusive use of Terminal 5, which was designed by Lord Rogers and opened by the Queen earlier this month.
The 34 cancelled flights represented almost 10% of the total due to fly in and out of the terminal yesterday, but BA was helped by the fact that the terminal will operate far below its full capacity of 70,000 passengers until next month, when it hopes to have all glitches ironed out. In the meantime, hundreds of daily BA flights will continue to operate from Heathrow's terminals 1 and 4, which reported no serious problems yesterday.
BA had promised that the new system would halve the number of bag delays and losses at the airline, which, at 26.5 bags for every 1,000 passengers, is the worst of any major European carrier.