As bad as the Aloha Airlines passenger jet shutdown has been in Hawaii - see yesterday’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin for some details - British Airways is facing a much larger problem with its new Terminal 5 in London’s Heathrow Airport. How bad is it?
The British Airways web site has a graphic on almost every page that says “We’re sorry”, and BA CEO Willie Walsh may be out of a job soon. Maybe BA executives shouldn’t have thrown that opening day party, as Jeff Nolan discussed here.
BA has called in FedEx to help deal with an estimated 28,000 bags because the entire bag handling system failed. Bags that were headed the the European continent have been diverted to Milan for sorting, according to this BBC article. See the BBC, Wired, Business Week and Bloomberg for more details.
Reliability is a key success factor
Air travelers want to get their baggage at their destination. BA has had baggage handling problems for years, according to an 21 August 2007 Wall Street Journal article.
This BBC article reveals that baggage handling personnel could not find parking spaces and were standing in line waiting for assignments as the bags started piling up. Workers struggled to use a scheduling system that should have assigned them to specific areas of the massive terminal, based upon flight activity and traffic patterns. A system that should have handled 12,000 bags per hour failed on its first morning because the staff didn’t know where to go in their new workplace.
The new £4.3 billion terminal, which was dedicated earlier this month and built specifically for BA, was supposed to help matters. Now thousands of travelers are marooned in Heathrow and neighboring hotels because the airline has canceled flights for the fifth consecutive day, according to another Bloomberg article. The BBC article said that 250 flights were canceled in the first 4 days alone.
Quite a shock
For those stranded in the new terminal, it’s a bit boring. BA does offer free WiFi in its Terminal 5 lounges, according to Jaunted. BoingBoing noted on 19 January 2008 that electrical outlets are hard to find in the new terminal. All in all, it’s worse than being fumigated in your seat.
