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Damian James' Blog: 4 April 2008
Date: 04 April 2008
I couldn't help but notice there were a few problems following the opening of the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow last week.
Planning for terminal problems
I couldn't help but notice there were a few problems following the opening of the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow last week.
There is a prominent 'sorry' posted on the British Airways website but no real light shed on what went so badly wrong on 27 March.
If you look at the airport operator's website BAA you have to search a bit harder to find any mention of issues at Terminal 5 and even then it just points you to the BA website.
It was my understanding that some of the blame for this fiasco lay at the feet of BAA but they obviously don't feel the need to say sorry to their customers. Perhaps it's because if we do fly we don't have a huge amount of choice about whether we use a BAA site or not.
According to various reports some of the problems were due to staff not having the right passes to get into the car parking and terminal building. It's amazing that having spent £4.3bn and six years on construction the end result is ruined by someone not being able to get into the car park. It suggests that while the building is finished to a high standard it might be worth someone actually delving into the detail prior to any grand opening.
In the Terminal 5 information pack it even proudly boasts that during the 66 operational readiness trials that took place they had 15,000 volunteers and "50,000 passenger profiles created to replicate all possible scenarios".
Mmmm, need I say more!
