Chaos at Terminal 5
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BREAKING NEWS BA's Automated aircraft
Now, Groundhand, I am very suspicious of your credentials. Are you the forebearer of what the future holds? The stripping of cost from BA by removing all staff completely from the operation?
Just saw this on the ITV news; LINK
Well stone the crows, Willies secret weapon, an aircraft that flies itself without any crew. Now that is just genius, Willie I take it all back you can keep the job.........
BALPA be aware, he has a secret weapon, autopilot planes, don't go on strike or he'll get more of the new series wonderbuses
Just saw this on the ITV news; LINK
Chicago-bound flight left Terminal 4 yesterday empty of both passengers and crew as a result of staff shortages
BALPA be aware, he has a secret weapon, autopilot planes, don't go on strike or he'll get more of the new series wonderbuses
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It's the Internet, innit ....
My goodness, "Chaos at T5" has really shifted direction to "Kill Will".
I'd stayed clear of PPRuNe for years, because I thought it would be far too "Captain Speaking" for we common mortals. How wrong I was ... it's Facebook/Bebo in suits.
Relevant and useful inputs at ...
#1010 from L9172
#1026 from al446
#1077 from tagron
For the benefit of the rest of "Planet Earth" ... i.e. the bludgy inconvenient proles that pay their own money to travel through sh1t airports on sh1t airlines and thus pay the wages of those who work in them, is there any chance that some of the enthusiasts here would consider returning the thread to a meaningful discussion on T5?
Or am I being a boring old faaart, who would just like to know WTF is happening?
I'd stayed clear of PPRuNe for years, because I thought it would be far too "Captain Speaking" for we common mortals. How wrong I was ... it's Facebook/Bebo in suits.
Relevant and useful inputs at ...
#1010 from L9172
#1026 from al446
#1077 from tagron
For the benefit of the rest of "Planet Earth" ... i.e. the bludgy inconvenient proles that pay their own money to travel through sh1t airports on sh1t airlines and thus pay the wages of those who work in them, is there any chance that some of the enthusiasts here would consider returning the thread to a meaningful discussion on T5?
Or am I being a boring old faaart, who would just like to know WTF is happening?
Last edited by Two-Tone-Blue; 3rd Apr 2008 at 16:46.
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As one who has previously fallen foul of the hidden rule on this forum that "only very experienced knowledgeable engineers and flight crew may make any valid comments about air crashes" I must say that this thread has been a like breath of fresh air largely free of the normal management strictures in the forum on what may or may not be deemed to be a valid contribution.
I still feel BAA is not carrying enough of the blame here since they built the terminal and the physical baggage machinery and ultimately if they as airport operator believed that moving most BA T1 flights to the terminal all in one day was too risky a strategy they should have insisted on other more measured solutions. Also as the Queen opened the damned terminal 2 weeks before disaster day surely a far more logical approach would have been to have had at least a single flight leave on the day the Queen opened T5 (making her opening of the building a real rather than only a ceremonial exercise) and then to have built up slowly adding say 3 routes a day to T5 for the next 70 days or whatever (no idea offhand how many routes BA has in total). Then if there had been issues there would have been some choppyness and may be the odd cancelled flight here and there but it could have been worked on in a manageable kind of way.
Also why on earth when disaster ensued on March 27th did no one have the good sense to totally revert all flights back to T1-4 for the next 14 or 28 days or whatever whilst a post mortem was done so a repeat could be avoided. The answer seems to be that because modern brash corporate egos cannot admit to their mistakes and cannot bring themselve to accept an orderly retreat rather than the modern equivalent of Custer's Last Stand). OK so some passengers would have still have shown up at T5 (despite text messages etc now being possible) but most of them would still have got to T1 by bus or underground or whatever in time for their flight and would have had a reasonable holiday or trip with their luggage!
I visited T5 to collect a passenger on the first day and after initially being amazed that the grasping and avaricious BAA could possibly have seen their way to offering free parking in the Short Term car park the reasons for this soon became apparent. No lifts worked in the car park, no lifts worked inside the terminal building and signage to find your way back to the car park within the terminal building was almost totally absent. Then the cafes had run out of tea while I had to wait 2 hours for the person I was meeting to appear (fortunately they had only made their journey with hand luggage).
The biggest problems that no one seems to have been willing to discuss is that T5 is simply too big so that any disaster that does strike is then of monumental proportions. If Heathrow Airport in the end becomes largely massive Heathrow West (neeT5) and Heathrow East (nee T1&T2) buildings plus minnow like T3 and T4 then surely it is much more vulnerable to the unthinkable happening with a terrorist dirty bomb or even an aircraft crashing in to T5 (conceivable given its location and the building's height). Then what happens - London loses 30 million passengers a year capacity and all inter lining non UK bound international passengers divert to Europe while UK bound passengers find themselves landing at Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol or wherever else they didn't want to go.
To my mind aside from out of touch press on regardless management not constrained by reality at BA and BAA the biggest sin of all here has been pure and utter greed by simply building a terminal that is too big. With a terminal of this size whenever a major problem develops then the consequences are always going to be a meltdown of unimagineable proportions.
I still feel BAA is not carrying enough of the blame here since they built the terminal and the physical baggage machinery and ultimately if they as airport operator believed that moving most BA T1 flights to the terminal all in one day was too risky a strategy they should have insisted on other more measured solutions. Also as the Queen opened the damned terminal 2 weeks before disaster day surely a far more logical approach would have been to have had at least a single flight leave on the day the Queen opened T5 (making her opening of the building a real rather than only a ceremonial exercise) and then to have built up slowly adding say 3 routes a day to T5 for the next 70 days or whatever (no idea offhand how many routes BA has in total). Then if there had been issues there would have been some choppyness and may be the odd cancelled flight here and there but it could have been worked on in a manageable kind of way.
Also why on earth when disaster ensued on March 27th did no one have the good sense to totally revert all flights back to T1-4 for the next 14 or 28 days or whatever whilst a post mortem was done so a repeat could be avoided. The answer seems to be that because modern brash corporate egos cannot admit to their mistakes and cannot bring themselve to accept an orderly retreat rather than the modern equivalent of Custer's Last Stand). OK so some passengers would have still have shown up at T5 (despite text messages etc now being possible) but most of them would still have got to T1 by bus or underground or whatever in time for their flight and would have had a reasonable holiday or trip with their luggage!
I visited T5 to collect a passenger on the first day and after initially being amazed that the grasping and avaricious BAA could possibly have seen their way to offering free parking in the Short Term car park the reasons for this soon became apparent. No lifts worked in the car park, no lifts worked inside the terminal building and signage to find your way back to the car park within the terminal building was almost totally absent. Then the cafes had run out of tea while I had to wait 2 hours for the person I was meeting to appear (fortunately they had only made their journey with hand luggage).
The biggest problems that no one seems to have been willing to discuss is that T5 is simply too big so that any disaster that does strike is then of monumental proportions. If Heathrow Airport in the end becomes largely massive Heathrow West (neeT5) and Heathrow East (nee T1&T2) buildings plus minnow like T3 and T4 then surely it is much more vulnerable to the unthinkable happening with a terrorist dirty bomb or even an aircraft crashing in to T5 (conceivable given its location and the building's height). Then what happens - London loses 30 million passengers a year capacity and all inter lining non UK bound international passengers divert to Europe while UK bound passengers find themselves landing at Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol or wherever else they didn't want to go.
To my mind aside from out of touch press on regardless management not constrained by reality at BA and BAA the biggest sin of all here has been pure and utter greed by simply building a terminal that is too big. With a terminal of this size whenever a major problem develops then the consequences are always going to be a meltdown of unimagineable proportions.
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The WeeWillie game link only seems to lead to a hosting page for the web company. Has Wee Willie had an injunction for defamation of character slapped on the site?
Perhaps he has been taking advice from Max Moseley's lawyers.
Perhaps he has been taking advice from Max Moseley's lawyers.
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Fit for Five
Capvermell, no just tried it, works fine. You have to click on the screen to activate the FLASH game. Of course you need the flash player loaded on your PC. So generally BA pc's would be out of the question, I say generally. I have heard a wee birdie that tells me they've been playing it in Waterworld. Imagine playing such a disrespectful game with the man it ridicules working away in the next office. Disgraceful, what's this country come to? is there no manners or decency left?
Oh another thing, suprisingly nobody has mentioned the BA MANTRA, well other than the reall catchy 'BA WAY' as stated in the corporate responsability report - T5 is bringing "the BA Way" to life.
Wanna know what happens to your bags being loaded to BA PLANES? Checkout the videos below'
1. BA BAG BOYS 1
2. BA BAG BOYS 2
3. BA BAG BOYS 3
4. BA BAG BOYS 4
5. BA BAG BOYS 5
Oh if anyone can remember that speal about the BA WAY,please put it on her for a laugh. Extra points if you can identify the individual, committee or agency that invented the drivel. It was wierd......
Oh another thing, suprisingly nobody has mentioned the BA MANTRA, well other than the reall catchy 'BA WAY' as stated in the corporate responsability report - T5 is bringing "the BA Way" to life.
Wanna know what happens to your bags being loaded to BA PLANES? Checkout the videos below'
1. BA BAG BOYS 1
2. BA BAG BOYS 2
3. BA BAG BOYS 3
4. BA BAG BOYS 4
5. BA BAG BOYS 5
Oh if anyone can remember that speal about the BA WAY,please put it on her for a laugh. Extra points if you can identify the individual, committee or agency that invented the drivel. It was wierd......
One thing springs to mind here - apart from the proven inept BA management - the baggage handling system is Dutch and is the same as in Schiphol . I seem to remember now why I don't fly KLM anymore ... uuurm lost bags from Schiphol ... and lies .
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BAengineering
It ran ok in Firefox 2. IE7 didn't seem to want to know. It seemed too hard to jump over those trolleys for my liking, even if you jump they still seem to knock the bag out of Willy's hands. I only managed to get 2 in the hold before giving up. Still I suppose the idea is to be as difficult as the real T5 baggage system to use. Also I thought there could have been a better likeness for Willy with the player. As to BA's CEOs my only grudge against Skippy was being the man to take the axe to the world's finest ever passenger aircraft (which I had the pleasure of travelling on JFK to LHR only 8 days before the end in 2003) but Walsh I took an instant dislike to as the meanest kind of character lacking cost cutter with an obvious Napoleon complex. Has the man ever been known to smile or laugh about anything?
Capvermell, no just tried it, works fine. You have to click on the screen to activate the FLASH game
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It looks as if the chaos at T5 has been too much for some.....just heard Naomi Campbell got tossed off a flight due to "baggage" problems......would love to have seen that one....
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Oh, good, now the big issue is computer games. 
It's good to know that subscribers to a thread about the T5 disaster have their priorities right.
I think I'll just sidle towards to door, and pretend PPrune never happened.
It's good to know that subscribers to a thread about the T5 disaster have their priorities right.
I think I'll just sidle towards to door, and pretend PPrune never happened.
You will find an interesting article on complex systems here - and I would argue that T5 is a classic example of a complex system:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...ilisation.html
The key conclusion is here:
So build a highly complex operation like T5 with minimal staff relying on automation and individuals start to matter.
Now try and reconcile this with what we are told is an abusive management culture that does their level best to dis-empower their own staff.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...ilisation.html
The key conclusion is here:
Bar-Yam thinks the loss of key people would be crucial. "Losing pieces indiscriminately from a highly complex system is very dangerous," he says. "One of the most profound results of complex systems research is that when systems are highly complex, individuals matter."
Now try and reconcile this with what we are told is an abusive management culture that does their level best to dis-empower their own staff.
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Heathrow operator apologises for T5 chaos
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.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b3b5c5a6-0...nclick_check=1
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.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b3b5c5a6-0...nclick_check=1
More bang for your buck
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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.”
“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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Sir Colin Matthews
Now this is a man that was loved or lothed at BA engineering, personally i thought he was a reasonable director. However, that latest posting, the first I have heard from BAA, is somewhat respectable. Well done Mr Matthews, that's how good PR works. BA you could learn a trick or two.
Nothing grovelling, just matter of fact and business like. Proactive and straight to the point. Even a small concession to BA, shouldering a little blame for BAA's part. I mean he couldn't get away from the lift issue with an ITN reporter stuck in one. So there were infrastructure snaggs, so what, that didn't stop us getting the passengers, with luggage ready to go.
I think this is because Mr Matthews has prior experience of BA, he knows the individuals, he knows that when the 'sit down with BA' happens it will all end up being down to BA's PPP (BA's piss poor planning) and staffing issues.
Nothing grovelling, just matter of fact and business like. Proactive and straight to the point. Even a small concession to BA, shouldering a little blame for BAA's part. I mean he couldn't get away from the lift issue with an ITN reporter stuck in one. So there were infrastructure snaggs, so what, that didn't stop us getting the passengers, with luggage ready to go.
I think this is because Mr Matthews has prior experience of BA, he knows the individuals, he knows that when the 'sit down with BA' happens it will all end up being down to BA's PPP (BA's piss poor planning) and staffing issues.
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As an interested outsider and user (SLF), I have followed this thread with interest. I am employed in aviation, but not in the airline industry.
I have used LHR and BA (nee BOAC) from the late fifties up to 2005 and LGW from 1990 until the same time. Generally, the experience was a positive one and frequently came across front line staff that were professional and courteous. At the end, especially at LGW, luggage was slow to arrive at the baggage hall.
Lately, I have avoided LHR and LGW, only using regional airports and debacles like this only reinforce my reasons for doing so.
As a customer, an airline HAS to achieve two things before I will consider using it, firstly, safety (obviously) and secondly, a demonstrated ability to get myself and luggage to my destination together. Price, timings, comfort, service etc are considerations which come later.
Whilst I have on occasions travelled with only hand luggage, this has been my choice and not the airlines. When taking luggage to check in, it is completely unacceptable to arrive at the airport and find that the airline will not accept checked in luggage and expect me to travel without it.
An airline that expects me to check in and travel without my luggage will NEVER get my business again. BA appears to think that it is acceptable for an airline to offer travel on this basis.
It remains to be seen whether my view is in the majority, but I think that BA has crossed the line and is now in terminal decline, unfortunately for the majority of its workforce.
I have used LHR and BA (nee BOAC) from the late fifties up to 2005 and LGW from 1990 until the same time. Generally, the experience was a positive one and frequently came across front line staff that were professional and courteous. At the end, especially at LGW, luggage was slow to arrive at the baggage hall.
Lately, I have avoided LHR and LGW, only using regional airports and debacles like this only reinforce my reasons for doing so.
As a customer, an airline HAS to achieve two things before I will consider using it, firstly, safety (obviously) and secondly, a demonstrated ability to get myself and luggage to my destination together. Price, timings, comfort, service etc are considerations which come later.
Whilst I have on occasions travelled with only hand luggage, this has been my choice and not the airlines. When taking luggage to check in, it is completely unacceptable to arrive at the airport and find that the airline will not accept checked in luggage and expect me to travel without it.
An airline that expects me to check in and travel without my luggage will NEVER get my business again. BA appears to think that it is acceptable for an airline to offer travel on this basis.
It remains to be seen whether my view is in the majority, but I think that BA has crossed the line and is now in terminal decline, unfortunately for the majority of its workforce.
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I think that fairly amplifies the importance of the items in passengers luggage.
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On Friday I had the bizarre experience of a BA captain standing at the front addressing the passengers over the PA system and said,
"I have been told we have four containers of luggage loaded but I cannot assure you that it is your luggage.
I saw the apology given by the director of operations on television and I thought it was both insincere and insubstantial."
At which point I thought what a pillock and who is he trying to impress. If that is typical of aircrew these days then I will not be travelling with BA again.
Personally the bloke should be sacked - it's the most unprofessional thing I think I have seen. He needs to stick to driving the bus, that's what he is paid to do. He may have an axe to grind with the company but it should not be done in front of the customers.
"I have been told we have four containers of luggage loaded but I cannot assure you that it is your luggage.
I saw the apology given by the director of operations on television and I thought it was both insincere and insubstantial."
At which point I thought what a pillock and who is he trying to impress. If that is typical of aircrew these days then I will not be travelling with BA again.
Personally the bloke should be sacked - it's the most unprofessional thing I think I have seen. He needs to stick to driving the bus, that's what he is paid to do. He may have an axe to grind with the company but it should not be done in front of the customers.
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On Friday I had the bizarre experience of a BA captain standing at the front addressing the passengers over the PA system and said,
"I have been told we have four containers of luggage loaded but I cannot assure you that it is your luggage.
I saw the apology given by the director of operations on television and I thought it was both insincere and insubstantial."
At which point I thought what a pillock and who is he trying to impress. If that is typical of aircrew these days then I will not be travelling with BA again.
Personally the bloke should be sacked - it's the most unprofessional thing I think I have seen. He needs to stick to driving the bus, that's what he is paid to do. He may have an axe to grind with the company but it should not be done in front of the customers.
"I have been told we have four containers of luggage loaded but I cannot assure you that it is your luggage.
I saw the apology given by the director of operations on television and I thought it was both insincere and insubstantial."
At which point I thought what a pillock and who is he trying to impress. If that is typical of aircrew these days then I will not be travelling with BA again.
Personally the bloke should be sacked - it's the most unprofessional thing I think I have seen. He needs to stick to driving the bus, that's what he is paid to do. He may have an axe to grind with the company but it should not be done in front of the customers.
If you'd rather he hadn't warned you that your bags might not make it then that's your choice - my understanding of the situation is that not only were only half the bags on board but no-one could tell them which half were missing. Far better to warn people in advance than have a nasty surprise waiting at (I believe) EDI - a fact appreciated by the majority of the passengers. He may not have made any friends amongst the managers, but he tells me that a large number of the passengers thanked him for his honesty.
Would you'd rather he'd stood there and told you that everything was fine, only to find out 90 minutes later that it wasn't? Would you'd rather have had some "party-line" towing company gob****e giving you a load of bull? He could also have sat behind a locked flightdeck door to make the announcement but chose to come out front and face the fare-paying passengers when he broke the bad news. I suppose having the decency to look your customers in the eye is unprofessional, too?
In my career in aviation I have always believed that the only way to earn the respect of passengers and colleagues is honesty - and the "apology" by the company was indeed insincere and inadequate. BA screwed up by not having enough people on the ground on day one - a decision made at the highest level - yet it's the people on the shop floor taking the flak.
I can assure you that he has absolutely NO axe to grind with BA having been with then for a decade and a half - in fact he loves working there. A great deal of anger has been directed at BA personnel by passengers - see Naomi Campbell and Calvin Harris (and he should have been smart enough to make TWO copies of his album) - explaining the facts to his passengers was a way of protecting his crew. If you think that honesty and concern for colleagues/passengers are unprofessional traits, well, Ryanair have tickets available for you!
The bit that you've missed out from your quote was that he informed the passengers about the luggage problem so that they could make an informed choice as to whether or not to travel - although he did suggest that the best bet was probably to continue to destination as there was at least a 50% chance of the bags getting there.
Last edited by moggiee; 3rd Apr 2008 at 22:23.