Most of reasons why T5 went wrong...
The T5 problems were caused 90% by HAL/BAA, not BA, but BA should have checked.
Don't know if the facts below have been circulated yet 'cos the other thread is too long. I have friends everywhere at LHR:
1. At the last minute HAL/BAA changed the car parking arrangement for staff but didn't communicate it to anyone other than publishing a new timetable for N5/N1: N2 was now only for contractors so as there were very few contractors left it was 90% empty on 27th. N1 buses only ran from 0630 to 1330 so no use to majority of staff who are shift workers. Observant staff [not management] tried to use N5, which filled up well before 0700, no-one could park, gridlock occurred, staff queuing in cars got upset, police had to be called as a riot nearly took place, staff ordered to park in N1. Extra buses laid for N1 turned up only to discover that their "electronics" would not let them into N1, so buses got gridlocked in entrance to N1. Queue of buses couldn’t reverse because the staff cars waiting to get in were now gridlocked trying to get into N1. Result? 80% of staff for T5 were over 2 hours late into T5.
2. HAL staff security entrance is inadequate even when things are running smoothly. So you can imagine what happened when all these late staff turned up at within a short time frame. With respect to the bigger picture HAL have misanalyses the staff numbers per unit time at the busy periods during shift start times so delays to staff arriving on-post continue for ever because it was built wrong. No more space to neither put any more staff entrances nor expand what’s already there.
3. HAL had not processed most of the requests for the BA staff that needed to logon to the check-in system in T5. But BA should have checked.
4. Because of BA’s staff “thinning” in the last 10 years, baggage handlers and check-in could not be spared in large enough numbers to stay current on the new training and equipment for T5. So they either forgot or are so rusty that they can’t do their job in T5. Furthermore there were no “experts” on the tarmac to help direct or assist staff and that’s why the baggage problems persist. BA currently operates a combination of “just-in-time”, “downsizing”, “lean-and-thin” management philosophies. Unfortunately the rest of the world got rid of these flawed US techniques of 10 years ago.
5. The entire T5 “system” worked up to a point; it was never stressed tested to maximum capacity for hours because HAL thought they would “creep” up to that point over time as currently T5A is not supposed to be full. Unfortunately for HAL the staff arrival delays into T5 causing the baggage backlog on the first morning took HAL to this point within a few hours.
6. Above point about T5A: anyone notice that there appears to be a sample of destinations in T5? Some short/medium/long haul. Deliberate cautious planning or customers being used as live system testers, allegedly. Strange how this wasn’t the “big bang” that T4 was…
7. Why no criticism of HAL by BA? Because BA were suppose to have thoroughly test T5 months ago…
8. It is still a mystery why the “Fast” bag drops don’t work.
In conclusion, 90% of all the problems are caused by HAL. But BA 10% fault didn’t excuse them from checking HAL.