Heathrow operator apologises for T5 chaos
By John Willman and Kevin Done
Published: April 3 2008 19:58 | Last updated: April 3 2008 19:58
Passengers using Heathrow’s Terminal 5 will soon experience “impeccable service”, the new chief executive of BAA, the airport’s operator, said on Thursday.
Colin Matthews, making his first public comments since taking up his post on Tuesday, apologised for the distress suffered by passengers but refused to blame any single factor for the chaos that at one stage left more than 20,000luggage bags misplaced.
He refused to allocate blame, saying that some of the problems were on BAA’s side, some on the airline’s and some at the interface between the two.
Mr Matthews said no fundamental weakness in the £4.3bn terminal’s state-of-the-art baggage system had emerged as BAA and British Airways worked together to deal with the backlog.
“I’m very confident that the baggage system is robust and will provide a great service, as will T5 as a whole,” he said.
BA said it would be forced to cancel 34 domestic and short-haul European flights on Friday but was planning to operate a full schedule for the first time from the new terminal on Saturday.
It said it could not rule out cancellations next week.
Including the latest cancellations, BA has stopped 465 flights since the opening of the showpiece terminal last week, when mounting problems halted all baggage check-in. The airline estimated the financial impact of the chaos at about £16m, including the costs of the disruption and lost revenues.
But BA said that the performance of T5 was “steadily improving”.
The airline is due to move a further 20 per cent of its total Heathrow operations, or about 120 flights a day, from T4 to T5 on April 30. Any delay will have an impact on other carriers, which are also due to be relocated between terminals.
Mr Matthews said: “At the right time, we should sit down with BA and understand every single lesson there is to be learnt.
“I don’t want to do that too soon because we need to have clear sight of all the issues and make sure we are not tempting people to withdraw from joint working into a defensive position.”
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