I watched, I waited, and I was right. I've had several discussions with one of the team planning and testing the baggage systems in T5, primarily because I am the godfather to his daughter. For months, he had been saying it won't work, too much reliance on a new and untried system, too many unresolved problems and issues. BA workers not knowing where to go, when to take full ULDs out to an aircraft, not knowing where to park, where to wait etc. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

And Guess what, this isn't the biggest part of the "terminal move" plan, the 30th April should see all of the T4 long-haul ops come over to T5. I foresee and predict many months of misery for BA and BAA, let alone the poor passengers who are expected to put up with sub-standard services.

Shortage of BAA staff, shortage of Immigration staff, both foreseen because they are running at normal staffing levels for FOUR terminals not FIVE. The staffing levels apparently running at 30% below required levels. Watch the other terminals start to feel the pinch as BAA bleed expereinced staff from existing areas to feed T5.

BAA got rid of their previous CEO before he had to fall on his sword, its about time some heads of departments came out into the terminal to hear their customers comments, both passengers and the airlines. I was rather amused to watch BA managers running for cover, telling their staff not to use the terminal area or check-in to leave work. I'm sorry but it would go 110% to foster better customer services if the leaders led from the front instead of hiding in their boardrooms.

<<when they retrenched to become London Airways >>

"London Airways" used to be the radio callsign for the ATC system serving southern UK. Let not anybody confuse an organisation staffed by real professionals, who did a fantastic job, with the Fred Karno Army outfit currently in the news!

HEathrow AirPort
 

More shops than Lakeside. Aeroplanes? Dunno, somewhere over there I fink. Luggage? Yeah, sell you a suitcase. Blimey,you're looking for your suitcase? Come back when you get hungry, we sell food too.

Pax still use this dump. Why?

Most of us are changing carparks and again have been given a new swipe card to gain access, but as yet have not had a chance to check it actually works ! :ugh:

Maybe they ought to look at how other places manage to use the ID card as the swipe card for the staff car park .... saves money too!!

Then all a change of car park needs is for someone to change the parking entitement on the computer...... then again ..

Seeing it coming at Waterworld
 

I left BA at the end of the T5 design phase, and YES - we saw this coming. Concerns, requests, pleas, begging, all to no avail. The on time opening meant that training times were cut even in 2003. I'm amazed that security passes, etc, were not tested and working 6 months ago - that would have been easy.
My interest now is whether this is a bloody nose for Willie from the unions or sheer incompetance from the BA management.
I'm so pleased to watch this from the outside and so sorry for the staff who hoped for a beautiful new working environment and have to deal with this mess. There was only 1 chance and it was blown away.

But are you suggesting NATS management is better than this we see from BAA and BA, Heathrow Director? I am not convinced. Once upon a time, yes, but not today I think. Maybe at NATS you are recalling the quality of the controllers, just as at BA we are currently today left with perhaps just the individual pilots left carrying 'the standard'?

Are we sure these people can maintain it alone until the support structures are fixed?

Slip and turn.....what is your beef with NATS? Did you not notice that TC were moved in its entirety, to Swanwick earlier this year with barely a hiccup?

BBC News pointed out that KUL, SIA and DEN all had problems when they opened new airports.

I accept that there will always be glitches with anything new - these things happen and can be forgiven if staff had been trained, infrastructure tested fully and BLOODY BA and BAA "management" had the balls to admit the cock-up. The hackneyed excuses about "complex issues", "the first day" etc won't wash.

National disgrace :ugh:

High time that government nationalised BAA temporarily (a la Northern rock) and parachuted in a professsional management team from Schipol, Changi or wherever. Anything is better than the "Tesco" mentality managers currently "running" BAA.

Watching GMTV this morning and was dismayed to be British.

Not because of the fiasco that was unfolding at T5 but at a report that a uniformed BA female worker who stopped for petrol was both virbally and physically abused by people (read scum) affected by the debacle that is T5.

WTF is going on in this country, it's bad enough we can't organise the proverbial but now there are idiots resorting to this.

Please, play nicely.

Well Widger, had there been an operations hiccup in the Air Traffic Control operation when it moved, there might have been smoking holes in the ground methinks. That notion concentrates even a poor management's mind.

Talking of Swanwick, how late and how much over budget was it, in the end - and what's that internal Swanwick squabbling all about that's spilled on to the ATC Issues board?

All these operations have been parasited for immediate profit, of course, one way or another. The managers and staff are pawns, the passengers are mere throughput. The operations themselves are just vehicles to the real people profiting, and I fear that to them it doesn't actually make much difference what state the vehicle is in after they jump out of it...

Great quote here..

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssI...36939520080328

"We're trying to cope with the overhang from yesterday's problems and to do that we've cancelled 36 flights in order to create more capacity," said BA spokesman Michael Johnson."

I guess that works because some people don't immediatley rebook? A chap on News 24 said his flight, due to depart tonight, was cancelled so he rebooked for 8am today (eg 12 hours earlier). Brave chap. He'd had a mad dash to the airport and was calling from the gate. Had been told at check-in he had 8 mins to get to the plane, ran all the way only to find no gate staff, and an hour later still no staff.

All I need to complete this mighty fiasco, is for 24 hour news media to interview the first passenger to claim for post T5-raumatic stress, or has it happened already?

Lawyers will be down there in droves! :rolleyes:

I have a spare short sword for Willie.........

Slip and Turn,
Yep welcome to 21st century Britain where the country's infrastructure is seen solely as a way to extract large profits from the public. No-one thinks that having an affordable, organised, well run transport system might actually benefit the country as a whole. Short sighted greed prevails! I feel sorry for the poor sods caught up in this charade.

It's a good job that BAA didn't introduce the fingerprinting recogntion system as well.

Suvarnabhumi got some stick during the BKK changeover, surely that was no worse than LHRT5.

Standby for The Bearded Wonder to appear on your TV sets shortly:)

Denver problems
 

I actually flew out of DIA on the first day of operation and there was nothing like this level of disruption. Don't forget in that case they were opening an entirely new airport - 4 terminals on a different site to the old Stapleton - not just a new terminal on the same site as the existing operation.

As with most people I have avoided LHR unless there are NO practical alternatives. I guess from now on even impractical alternatives will become more attractive!

Trident, you've just about summed it up perfectly. This is what the UK has become. Short-term greed, greed and more greed.:mad:

After 37 years with BA why was I surprised. We all sat around waiting for the inevitable to happen.

But the real kick in the teeth for BA Staff was that moron Kirkwood, who stood in front of the cameras looking like a schoolboy reading out a poor school report to his parents, then scurrying away with a BA Press Officer as if he was a movie star.

Bloody disgrace.

Could this debacle of happened with King and Marshall in charge... I don't think so...
... but we have employed second rate 'Yes' men who don't want to listen and don't know.

There is more spinning done in Waterside than in a busy laundrette..

I am absolutely embarrassed to be part of what was once a great company and is now a laughing stock....

Not everyone is professional
 

Getting angry ultimately doesn't solve anything, but I'm not surprised this happens. They may not be highly paid, but too many BAA and BA staff do as little as possible, stand around chatting, opening gates when they feel like it :=, and the things I've seen baggage handlers do to luggage airside are shocking (not just at LHR) :bored:.

You need to do more than wear a uniform to be professional. It's a state of mind - a way of thinking. That applies from top to bottom of BAA and BA.

Navy_Adversary

Some of that stick was from me but they changed airports - this is only a partial terminal move. Useless to$$ers.