World

Heathrow Terminal 5 already experiencing chaos - check-in suspended

by amyjudd | March 27, 2008 at 07:24 am | 644 views | 3 comments | 0 recommendations

by Dave Keating

3D Walkthrough - Baggage Reclaim at Heathrow Terminal 5

by Dave Keating

slideshow 1 more

UPDATE: 1:55PM EST

Check-in has now been suspended at Heathrow's new Terminal 5

All luggage check-in has been suspended at Heathrow's new £4.3bn Terminal 5, after cancelled flights and baggage delays blighted its opening day.

British Airways, which has sole use of the terminal, cancelled 34 flights due to "teething problems" and was later forced to stop luggage check-in.

Technical difficulties have also led to baggage delays of up to four hours.

BA blamed the glitches on problems with "staff familiarisation", which had a knock-on effect on bags and flights.

Heathrow's new Terminal 5 has only been open for one day and already it is facing problems. Thirty-three flights have been cancelled and luggage problems have caused confusion and frustration among passengers.
The cancellations included incoming and outgoing flights, while three planes left without baggage and some passengers had to wait for two hours for their luggage to be unloaded off their flights.
As someone who has travelled through London's airports many times before, this is not that surprising and is an unacceptable standard for one of the world's busiest group of airports.

BAA, the airport operators, insisted that the difficulties were no more than teething troubles at the £4.3 billion terminal.But scores of passengers felt differently as they were confronted with a series of glitches from a set of escalators breaking down to pay machines at the car park not working properly.

BAA's problems were not helped by the presence of 300 t-shirt wearing protesters.While not directly interfering with passengers, they formed conga lines around the terminal and generally got in the way of already frustrated passengers.

This was a less than auspicious start for a terminal which was supposed to bring an end the "Heathrow hassle" which has ensured the airport is loathed by airlines, passengers and politicians alike.

Last year, Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, said the airport shamed the capital, while Kitty Ussher, the City minister, warned Britain's economy was being hit because of Heathrow's poor reputation among foreign businessmen.

Terminal 5 (T5) was supposed to bring an end to the delays faced by in and outbound passengers.Its new sophisticated baggage handling system was also supposed to mean that British Airways no longer lost more suitcases than any other major airline.

But it proved too sophisticated for some members of the first shift who, on turning up for work, found they were unable to log on to the system at all.

As a result the first flights to Brussels, Amsterdam and Edinburgh left without any luggage whatsoever.

There were similar difficulties with inbound passengers facing long waits for their baggage to come through.

Terminal 5 has decided to suspend their fingerprinting plan for the time being as well.

See NowPublic coverage here.

recommend Add a comment

Hopenow

at 08:00 on March 27th, 2008

I understand this project has been under development since the 1980s! Surely long enough to work out the bugs, do some test runs, and generally get the new Terminal up and running with the fewest number of glitches? I am afraid the British once again prove themselves to be world-losers at big projects.

amyjudd

at 08:29 on March 27th, 2008

I have no idea how something like this happens after so much money has gone into building and staffing this terminal. You would have thought they would have done some test runs before going 'live' so to speak. All that money, and people still can't get their luggage on time...

Hopenow

at 08:52 on March 27th, 2008

They like to over-complicate things in the UK: I think so as many people as possible can dip their hands into the budget. Its funny until it all goes wrong.