I can't understand why BA/BAA didn't do simple things like move all the baggage handlers' car parking spaces LAST week or LAST month and bus them back to T1/T3/T4 for a couple of weeks. That way all of those silly parking problems would have been dealt with already. It's an absolute no-brainer with a big project that MUST go well on day one even if it falls apart on day two by which time the media have all gone home, you should do EVERYTHING you can possibly do in advance, in advance. What's the cost of a few buses to move people back to their old workplace for a few weeks?

And take a leaf out of Eurostar's book - don't leave the move of vital equipment until the night before. Eurostar moved all their x-ray stuff or fitted new stuff at St Pancras ages before the move of service, and put hired or retirable equipment in Waterloo to keep it going for it's last few weeks. This new terminal cost £4.3bn, why didn't they keep a few mere million back for equipment hires to back-fill T4 so that they could take their time fitting T5 out properly? In fact even if T4 had been left short resulting in chaos there for the last few weeks, if it had allowed T5 to open properly fitted out instead of rushed and understaffed, the overnight improvement would have been fantastic publicity.

Still waiting for resignations from BA executive management, I guess we are not going to get them :ugh:

"I'm so worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow"
 

No, no ... don't let BA and BAA listen to Terry Gilliam again - they'll make some kind of reverse justification out of it :\

The Mañana luggage sysyem, hmmmm very Spanish

Responsibility
 

Previous postings re WW going make a very valid point but we've seen no more of the wooden GK & I would like to know who had the day to day responsibility for this project. Surely more than one head should be rolling here?

I also wonder how much experience of opening new terminals the management team had. Plenty of other's to learn from.

Lets see what happens in DXB
 

That will be the biggest transfer in history.

I hope the ICAO code is release soon, it will take a few years to get to the updates.

Abu Dhabi will open the new terminal and runway first, so that would be a good wet run....

did Serco get the airport contract, or just the monorail contract.???????

glf

groundhand,
King and Marshall were the best thing to happen to BA during the 24 years I worked for the company.
Whilst on secondment to Gulf Air in the 80s, I discussed BA with our pax without letting on that I was from BA. They almost invariably made glowing comment upon the way the airline's attitude to passengers had been turned around by K&M.

'Usual suspects', 'heat', 'kitchen' spring to mind :hmm:

I see one or two of them have now joined the baying mob.

Have to admit that on the face of it BA got a lot of things wrong but with anything on this scale there are bound to be teething issues. Not everything can be planned for and when something does goes wrong everyone is quick to blame the man at the top. When disneyland first opened there was chaos.

In the coming days and weeks I have no doubt that things will begin to operate smoothly. Have a little patience people.

And no, I don't work for BA :ok:

Party
 

Someone told me there was a party at T5 yesterday. anyone know if that's true?

Bollocks, if you can't get a bag to an aeroplane in a building that you have been crowing as having been thoroughly tested then you're not fit to run an airport. The problem with BAA is that they don't know how to run airports. Shops yes, airports, no.
I'm sick of their excuses as they've screwed people over once too often.

I flew in to DIA on the first day also, and things went smoothly. That is because the opening was pushed back from October 1993 to February 1995 after problems were found in the high-tech baggage system. It was to be fully automated, and after more than a year of tests and troubleshooting it was scrapped for a hybrid automated/manual system that exists to this day.

Basil,

I'm sure K & M were "the best thing to happen to BA during the 24 years I worked for the company" if you worked for BA. History shows that they led a less than honest management team that used the government of the day's protection to manipulate the market and other airlines' passengers. Yes, they did turn BA round. it was their methods that were totally unacceptable and they should have been held accountable.

However, these past exploits have nothing to do with the incompetence shown by the current BA management over the last few years. It amazes me that so many passengers still travel with them. I will do almost anything to avoid BA and particulalrly BA at LHR. Every once in a while I am left with no choice but to fly with them and they never fail to live up to their well earned reputation of NOT being the World's favorite airline.

I think our friend above is having a laugh.

Patience? How would he/she like to be hundreds or thousands of miles away with no luggage, or have their flight cancelled or be delayed for hours with young kids and no info.

It's all very well for people to say there will be teething problems but this debacle is indicative of some serious mis-management and those people should be held accountable.

Menawhile the poor traveling souls affected by this should be given some serious compensation for what has gone on.

I laughed at the program - 'Checking into Airport Chaos' = and now it's reality.:ugh::}:rolleyes:

Hmm the opening of the new terminal at DXB will indeed be interesting. I see it is intended to handle 43million passengers annually (http://www.business24-7.ae/cs/articl...adlineID=3720#) whereas LHR T5 is designed for 30million.

How will people defend LHR's "teething problems" if DXB T3 manages to open smoothly?

What I found a bit of a kick in the teeth was that BA was offering to reimburse up to £100 for a hotel room for last night. At short notice you won't get a room at an airport hotel for that price! Therefore potentially leaving the customer out of pocket when it is not the customers fault!

I wonder if Michael O'Leary should start a consutancy arm and teach BA how to turn an aircraft round in under 30 minutes? With some bags on board?

green_graniteI don't agree. I think the govt caught the attitude from business! In 1988, I watched my employer (an American merchant bank) introduce Outsourcing. I predicted that quality would fall but, because money was saved, it would be marked a success. It was.

Ten years later and both the old Tory and new Labour govts thought Outsourcing was flavour of the decade.

Ten years on from that (2007) and you are seeing some business' ending their outsourcing and bringing control back inside.

As to the Olympics in 2012 ... I am sad to say that the day they were 'awarded' to the UK, I predicted disaster.

As brakedwell states, WW will not resign. The new fashion is for the CEO/PM to accept responsibility and then carry on as normal. We saw this with Blair so no need to expect any different from a UK company.

Having worked in telecommunications and IT for over 25 years and done many large corporate moves, I am ASTOUNDED to learn that some equipment had to be moved 'live on the night'. You always buy new for Day One and then move the stuff you have to move for Week Two and so on. That is Project Management 1.01

King and Marshall?? You mean the best thing for BA that got them in court for trying to trash a competitor by underhand means? The operational staff of BA deserve better.

Lastly, soooo pleased to hear the Pythons. "Trouble in the middle East and the baggage system at Heathrow."??? We need a 'smiley' for: Rolling On The Floor And Laughing My A$$ Off.

And its also a pile of sh!t! Late post, letters delivered to wrong letterboxes, theft in the postal system...public/private ownership means nothing, its who you've got working for and with you that counts...

ANY person with a shred of common sense would have avoided H'Row fro at least a week after this opening.
How can anyone be surprised?

I wonder if Michael O'Leary should start a consutancy arm and teach BA how to turn an aircraft round in under 30 minutes? With some bags on board?

MOL is probably wetting himself with laughter over this, it certainly deflecting attention away from him.

There goes WW's knighthood!