The night-walkers of Uganda

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Passengers fume in the chaos of 
Terminal 5’s first day
Flights cancelled and baggage system collapses 
at BA’s £4.3bn showpiece
Dan Milmo, transport correspondent 
March 28, 2008
It took 20 years to plan, cost £4.3bn to build and
its staff had six months’ training before it opened.
But that didn’t stop the problems at Heathrow
Terminal 5 when it first opened yesterday, and
the baggage system stopped working.
British Airways had to cancel at least 34 flights
in and out of the terminal, and thousands of
passengers couldn’t travel.
Things still looked bad today as BA staff hurried
to clear an enormous baggage backlog and work
out exactly what had gone wrong.
This terrible first day was very embarrassing for
both Heathrow owner BAA and British Airways.
Travellers were only allowed to take hand
luggage, and they were told that their checked-in
bags would arrive later, or they could rebook their
flights. Delays at luggage carousels increased as
queues got longer and longer in the departure hall.
The situation got worse in the afternoon as
the baggage handling operation broke down
completely, leading to angry scenes at BA desks
as hundreds of passengers complained to staff.
Just hours after BA’s chief executive, Willie
Walsh, had toured the terminal promising a new
beginning for Heathrow travel, the airline had to
apologize once again for terrible conditions at
Britain’s biggest and busiest airport.
“British Airways flights from Heathrow Terminal
5 will depart with hand luggage only due to
problems associated with processing customers’
baggage,” said the airline in a statement.
“British Airways apologizes to customers for
the problems during Terminal 5’s first day of
operations following one of the most complex
and largest airport moves in history.” BA said
customers who had not yet checked-in for travel
could get their money back or rebook.
A lot of things caused yesterday’s disaster:
Computers did not recognize the IDs of the
baggage handlers and they could not log on
to work, so three flights took off without bags
Also, the handlers could not get where they
were supposed to go because they could not
get into the car parks or get security clearance
Baggage handlers could not send luggage to
the right place because they didn’t know the
layout of the new terminal, so passengers
arriving had to wait hours for their luggage to
leave the plane
There weren’t enough baggage storage bins
to load luggage onto planes, which made
things worse. Carousels loading luggage
also broke down
By the afternoon, the system became
overloaded and no more luggage could be
checked in
Delays in loading and unloading planes led
to delays in departures and arrivals, forcing
BA to cancel 34 flights so that its jets could
get ready for a normal timetable today
BA blamed the disaster on ‘teething problems’,
but got little sympathy from many of the 40,000
people who passed through T5 yesterday.
Kate Adamson, 39, travelling from Frankfurt with
her daughter Olivia, five, stopped expecting her
luggage after waiting more than an hour-and-
a-half in the morning. She said: “I am furious.
We had a 50-minute flight from Frankfurt and
then we had a 90-minute wait. The luggage
system seemed to have stopped completely.
Staff have been really rude and there has been
no announcement. One BA woman in there was
saying there was a technical problem. I’ve given
up. They can send my bags on.”
Producer Sir George Martin, famous for his
work with The Beatles, was also affected by the
difficulties. He said: “When I came here I was very
excited about the new terminal, but not now.”
Matt Duffy had to wait on a flight arriving into
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