The Risk Factor

British Airways (BA) yesterday said it was hoping to run a "normal" flight schedule this weekend after a week of trouble with its new baggage system at its brand spanking new Terminal 5. Normal meant a new "normal," not the old "normal" like that at Terminal 4 where baggage system problems was the norm.

Well, it looks like the new normal is the same as the old normal.

BA announced earlier today that, "the BAA baggage system in Terminal 5 has suffered another computer problem today, which has caused disruption to British Airways flights."

"We are urging BAA to resolve these issues as soon as possible. Today’s failure affects the baggage reconciliation system. This ensures that for security reasons we do not load any bags onto the aircraft where the passenger is not travelling."

"This means we have to manually reconcile bags for each flight which takes considerably more time than using the automated system. As a result this has led to flight delays and we have had to make a number of shorthaul cancellations."

"We apologise to passengers for the inconvenience."

BAA, the airport operator, also issued an apology: "This morning, a software problem has arisen in the baggage system at T5. This is entirely BAA's responsibility. We apologise to British Airways and all passengers who have been affected and can assure them that our specialist staff are working hard to resolve the problem and keep disruption to BA's operation to a minimum. While we know what the problem is, and have a potential solution, we are having to carefully consider how and when we apply this, to avoid further problems. We will provide further updates when appropriate."

It is never a good thing when you think your software fix may make things worse rather than better.

At least 12 flights were canceled today, and many flights were delayed for three hours or more.

Since the new terminal opened, over 400 flights have been canceled, at least 28,000 bags have been "mis-placed" and are being sorted in Milan, Gatwick, Manchester, Scotland, and the US, and the estimated costs to BA are at least $50 million. No word on whether BA will be asking BAA for compensation.

Life will get more interesting at the end of the month when most of the remainder of BA flights will move from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5. Of course, when the other airlines of the SkyTeam (Aeroflot, Air France, Alitalia, Bmi, Continental, CSA, Delta, Kenya Airways, KLM, Korean Air and Northwest Airlines) move into the space vacated by BA in Terminal 4. Given all the shuffling, I think it would be wise to avoid Heathrow until the end of the year.

The problems at Terminal 5 has inspired a game called Wee Willie Walsh in honor of British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh. The object of the game is to get a bag, get it through the security scanner, and then onto the plane.