BRITAIN:Heathrow's new £4.3 billion (€5.5 billion) showcase terminal yesterday suffered an unfortunate opening day with flights cancelled, luggage delayed and long queues.
Problems with the new Terminal 5 (T5) led to the sort of problems all too familiar at the west London airport. Airport operator BAA and airline British Airways (BA), for whom the new terminal has been built, had hoped that the new facility would mean a fresh start for Heathrow.
But BA was forced to cancel 34 short-haul and domestic flights and had to admit that despite lots of rehearsals there had been a problem with "staff familiarisation with the terminal".
One problem seemed to follow another after the day had got off to a good start with the first flight arriving from Hong Kong eight minutes early at 4.42am.
First, staff had problems with the car park, then a computer problem led to some departing flights having to leave with no luggage aboard.
Downstairs in the giant building, passengers off the first Hong Kong flight all got their bags in quick time.
But soon it was clear there were major problems with baggage reclaim, with some passengers having to wait as long as 2½ hours to collect their cases.
By lunchtime the knock-on affect of all the problems led BA to cancel 20 flights - a figure which later increased to 34.
In early afternoon, queue of more than 100 people wound back from the cancellation flights desk as people lined up to try to get away on other flights or get refunds.
To add to the difficulties the luggage belt in one part of the departure lounge failed and passengers were moved further down to a workable area.
British Airways said that teething problems had included "car parking provision, delays in staff security screening and staff familiarisation with the terminal".
The airline added: "We have also had some baggage performance issues."
- (PA)