British Airways (BA) decided in consultation with BAA, the airport operator, to delay moving the remainder of its flights from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 to June instead of from the end of this month as planned. According to press reports, the move would have meant the number of passengers handled at Terminal 5 doubling from 40,000 to 80,000 a day. BA and BAA felt that it wasn't ready to handle the expanded number of people just yet, as some elevators were still not working, and the baggage system still needed some "fine tuning."
Per usual, both BA and BAA apologized for the decision - something they have been doing a lot lately.
The other 54 airlines who were expecting to move among the other Heathrow terminals once BA vacated Terminal 4 in a game of complicated musical chairs are, to say the least, extremely unhappy.
There are still some 7,000 bags that have not yet rejoined their owners, and many may be burned, which has not made BA passengers happy, either. According to the Evening Standard, Giovanni Tinelli, from Onboard Express in Milan, which has a £5 million a year contract to sort lost BA bags, is quoted as saying, "All our BA bags that are untraceable are sent back to BA and then they are destroyed in an incinerator."
And just to make sure BA passengers stay unhappy for another few months, because BA had planned to have all of its Heathrow flights operating out of Terminal 5, BA designed its May 2008 onward schedule under that operating assumption. Thus, the new schedule assumed that less time would be needed for passengers transferring between BA flights since everyone would be arriving and departing at the same terminal.
Well, now, that assumptions has been knocked into a cocked hat. Some BA passengers transferring between flights, if they have to transfer between Terminals 4 and 5, now may not have adequate time to be able to make their flights. BA is offering to refund tickets or rebook the affected passengers.
It is going to be a longer summer at Heathrow.
The only good news is that Terminal 5 check-in and baggage systems seem to be now operating without any major disruptions.
