It now appears that the baggage problems at London Heathrow’s Terminal 5 were caused in part to a bit of test software that wasn’t removed properly.
According to a story in ComputerWeekly, British Airways (BA) Chief Executive Willie Walsh claims that "the main IT problem with the baggage system was a software filter that was mistakenly left in place after the system - designed by BAA (the airport operator) - went live. Walsh said the filter was used during the testing period to ensure the messages generated were restricted to the BAA operation, and were not sent out further than that. But because it remained in place after the terminal opened, it interfered with the messages coming into the system, meaning the system could not recognise a number of bags.”
“One other IT problem at the terminal concerned server capacity. Walsh said the servers had not been able to cope with the ‘significant increases’ in the volume of bags going through. The amount of messages the servers were coping with was significantly more than the amount run on them during modelling, and more server capacity is still required.”
Willie Walsh also admitted in testimony reported in the London Guardian before the Commons Transport Committee that he had considered delaying the move to Terminal 5 right up until a few weeks before the opening because he knew things were very dicey, but decided to go ahead anyway.
In fact, Walsh said that he knew as far back as last September that “the building programme was not 100 percent complete” and would likely not be by the opening on 27 March.
But, given the costs of delaying for six months (the minimum time Walsh said was required), he decided to take a “calculated risk” to open anyway.
As a London Telegraph story put it, “The upshot was that a planned six-month testing period to familiarise 15,800 BA staff with the new terminal and iron out glitches in baggage and other systems, could not be completed as intended.”
Only 80% of the BA staff actually had the required training.
“‘My regret is we did compromise on our testing programme. But we did this with our eyes open. It was a calculated risk,’ Walsh said.”
Walsh also said, “If we did it again, we would do things differently.”
Well, he will get another chance soon when BA plans to complete its move to Terminal 5 later this year.
Walsh also tried to play the same "forgive me for my relative bad behavior" game my children play with me. Walsh referred to other baggage system problems at Denver, Hong Kong and Barcelona as excuses for why BA's problems should not be seen in a bad light. Of course, he didn’t mentioned that other airports, like Singapore's and Beijing’s were able to open their new terminals without problems.
Finally, there are now rumors that BA is looking to replace Walsh, especially now that the Terminal 5 fiasco has caused tens of thousands of passengers to avoid flying BA. Better late than never.
