Chaos at Heathrow Terminal 5

[Naim 6]

BBC

Tuesday, 27 March 2007, 17:57 GMT 18:57 UK

 

Inside Heathrow's new terminal

Nick Higham

 

By Nick Higham

BBC News correspondent

 

A view of a plane from a window in Terminal 5

Terminal 5 is the UK's biggest free-standing building

 

The first thing that strikes you is its size: the main Terminal 5 building is big enough to house ten football pitches.

 

The whole Terminal 5 complex, including two satellite terminals and stands for 60 aircraft, cover an area the size of Hyde Park in London.

 

But then it needs to be big.

 

It is designed to take 30 million of the 68 million passengers who pass through Heathrow each year.

 

The airport's present terminals were designed for at most, 50 million, and are now hopelessly congested and chaotic, dingy and dysfunctional.

 

Vast building

 

Terminal 5 will become the hub for almost all BA flights from Heathrow. Its opening will allow space to breathe for airlines and passengers at the remaining terminals.

 

And there are plans to knock down and redevelop the oldest, Terminal 2.

 

The second thing that strikes you about Terminal 5 is that some bits of it are still a building site while others are virtually complete.

 

At the south end of the main terminal building the departure gates are finished. Only those rows of plastic seats and electronic signs hanging from the ceiling seem to be missing.

 

Elsewhere fork lift trucks shuttle back and forth and the noise of hammering and heavy machinery is almost deafening.

 

Crowds of men (and the odd woman) in hard hats swarm like ants through every corner of the vast building.

 

Self-service

 

Terminal 5's vast windows

30,000sq m of glass facades have been installed

 

Most impressive is the check-in area, on the top floor beneath the huge roof. A clear single-span structure that rests on 22 massive steel legs.

 

This is where passengers will arrive to check-in at self-service machines and leave their bags at one of 94 baggage drops.

 

Next to each drop, rows of suitcases are lined up, recycled from the orphaned bags lost at Heathrow over the years and never reclaimed.

 

Earnest young men with laptops are preparing to test the system, which in theory can process up to 12,000 bags an hour.

 

Passengers are promised a seamless, almost queue-free passage through check-in to passport control and the security area (enlarged after last year's terrorist scares).

 

BAA officials seem confident they can deliver on the promise, and standing beneath that spectacular roof, designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership, you really want to believe them.

 

Once in the departure lounge, passengers will have over 140 shops to choose from, right next to the departure gates.

 

Terminal 6

 

Terminal 5 building work

Two rivers were diverted as part of the construction of Terminal 5

 

Gone are those long walks from the main lounge to the gate which are a tedious feature of Heathrow's existing terminals.

 

Just visible through Terminal 5's grimy windows (they'll soon start to clean them) is the first of two satellite terminals linked to the main building by an underground shuttle.

 

It's hard not to be impressed, by a building that should make travelling to Heathrow less of an ordeal for millions of passengers.

 

But not everyone is delighted.

 

Already the environmentalists are marshalling their forces for the battle over another BAA project: the scheme to build a third runway and a sixth terminal at Britain's busiest airport.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6500839.stm

[H Azmal 0]

Eh? I thought EGLL already has three runwaYs?

[Seng Lim 0]

I like the 90 seconds video from that article as well, thanks Naim.

[Andrew Ong 1]

Already the environmentalists are marshalling their forces for the battle over another BAA project: the scheme to build a third runway and a sixth terminal at Britain's busiest airport.

 

Does the environmentalists know how crowded LHR is?

 

BAA just wanted to ease conjestion at LHR....

Edited March 28, 2007 by Andrew Ong

[Pieter C. 5]

T5 will be opened officially exactly one year from now on 28mar2008

 

Azmal,

 

Yes, officially 3 runways, although the x-runway is not used anymore...

[Alan B. 5]

Flights from Heathrow's new £4.3bn Terminal 5 are departing with hand baggage only after luggage check-in was suspended due to a processing backlog. British Airways, which has sole use of T5, announced check-in of all hold luggage was suspended until Friday.

 

The airline has already cancelled 34 flights because of baggage problems and passengers have had to wait up to four hours to reclaim their luggage.

 

BA said it "sincerely" apologised to all those customers affected.

 

'Refunds'

 

Angry scenes have also been developing in the airport's airside arrivals area, with pushing and shoving in "chaotic" passport control queues, the BBC's Priya Patel reported.

 

Travellers emerging from the baggage hall have told her that no luggage is coming through on carousels from arriving flights, and some complain that they have been waiting two to three hours for their bags.

 

Announcing the suspension of baggage check-in, Gareth Kirkwood, BA's director of operations, said: "We sincerely apologise to those customers who have suffered disrupted journeys or baggage delays.

 

 

 

 

"We always knew the first day would represent a unique challenge because of the size and complexity of the move into Terminal 5. We are working extremely hard on solutions to these short term difficulties."

 

The airline is advising passengers to check in with hand baggage only if they wish to travel later, or to telephone BA if they want a refund or to rebook a flight.

 

BA has offered passengers on cancelled flights £100 towards the cost of overnight accommodation, but travellers have reported that local hotels are charging up to twice that figure.

 

German businessman, Hertz Merkel, flying to Dusseldorf, was one of those left waiting in the long queues at the terminal's check-in desks.

 

"This is real British organisation for you. I've only got hand baggage but I still have to stand in the same queue. It doesn't look like I'll be getting home today."

 

 

 

 

Maria Matheou, 20, a student from Greece who is studying in Leicester, said it was "ridiculous" to be told she could not take her bags.

 

"We can hardly go on holiday without our luggage. We did the check-in online at 3pm today, we got our boarding passes, we stood in line and then right at the last minute we were told we cannot take our luggage with us."

 

Check-in delays also meant that Ray Duffy, who was trying to return home on a flight to Edinburgh, was turned away from security because he was too late for his flight.

 

But after returning to the departure hall, he discovered he could no longer fly with his luggage.

 

"I just hope I get home. It's incredible. I've stood in line for an hour, I get to the front of the line and they just send me to the back of another line," he said.

 

'Teething problems'

 

The suspension of luggage check-in was just the latest problem to hit passengers hoping to leave T5 on its opening day.

 

BA earlier announced "initial teething problems" with car parking provision, delays in staff security screening and staff familiarisation had resulted in a backlog of baggage.

 

This led the airline to cancel a number of flights in and out of the terminal, including services to Munich, Frankfurt, Paris and Brussels as well as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

 

A further technical fault also meant seven flights left T5 without luggage on board.

 

The BBC's transport correspondent Tom Symonds said the backlog was caused by problems with the airport's three-stage luggage processing system.

 

The first stage - the fast bag drop - was working as planned, he said. But the second stage, an underground conveyor system, had become clogged up.

 

This was being blamed on staff failing to remove luggage quickly enough at the final unloading stage.

 

In a statement, the Department for Transport said it expected BA and airport operator BAA "to work hard to resolve these issues and limit disruption to passengers".

 

Earlier, hundreds of protesters - wearing Stop Airport Expansion T-shirts and opposed to plans for a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow - carried out a peaceful protest at the terminal.

 

 

 

from BBC NEWS

Edited March 28, 2008 by Alan B.

[Mohd Azizul Ramli 2]

Reminds me of KUL's first day of operation. I think this is normal. Almost all major airports faced problem on their opening day. KUL, BKK, SIN T3 and now LHR T5.

[Ivan L. 0]

Reminds me of KUL's first day of operation. I think this is normal. Almost all major airports faced problem on their opening day. KUL, BKK, SIN T3 and now LHR T5.

 

Did SIN T3 even have problems during their opening day? The problem with LHR is they knew that they have teething problem, yet they didn't try to fix it. It is definitely not normal when you have to cancel 34 flights in one day. KUL did have problem, but that was a decade ago. Not to mention this is a developed country we are talking about. This is not a 3rd world country, where lack of infrastructure and proper management can be forgiven.

[H C Chai 4]

Typical Bristish, Can't wait for the 2012 Olympics!

[Y C LEONG 1]

was there yesterday.. good to look but not practical enough i m afraid.. even escalators and lifts gone tech..

[Pieter C. 5]

Glad I'm flying to T1 this coming monday !!!

[Simon 3]

What a disaster. Hope it will recover soon.

[KC Sim 2]

Reminds me of KUL's first day of operation. I think this is normal. Almost all major airports faced problem on their opening day. KUL, BKK, SIN T3 and now LHR T5.

 

I absolutely did not recall Changi T3 experiencing such chaos during its opening . . . I was there when it opened and felt it was a non-event as everything proceeded without drama.

 

KC Sim

 

[Mohd Azizul Ramli 2]

Sorry, but I think I read a newspaper article mentioning something about a glitch on SIN T3 opening day of operation. Or was it relating to passengers' confusion about the changing terminal? I will try to look for the article.

[Yusoff 1]

was there yesterday.. good to look but not practical enough i m afraid.. even escalators and lifts gone tech..

Gone tech? how's that? the lifts don't come with the normal push buttons anymore?

Speech recog? Capt Luc Picard: "Elevator, Engineering"

[Cornelis Boersma 0]

[Pieter C. 5]

Good one, Cornelis,

 

Even today, the chaos at T5 didn't subside

[Keith T 2]

I expected some chaos - as with the opening of any new terminal, but the sheer magnitude of it was quite unexpected even for LHR.

 

Typical Bristish, Can't wait for the 2012 Olympics!

 

That's a bit of a generalisation.

Edited March 29, 2008 by Keith T

[Terence Ong 0]

A new terminal will have such problems. However, that did not happen for SIN T3 and I heard no problems at PEK T3 when it first opened. I don't know what's wrong with BAA, honestly.

[H C Chai 4]

T5 isn't the only high profile project in the UK that suffers from a PR disaster - there are London Eye, Millenium Bridge, Wembley stadium....

 

I do have some symphaty on British Airways, the public seem to be pointing fingers at the airline. BAA is partly responsible too, and they are not the greatest airport operators around.

[Timothy 1]

T5 isn't the only high profile project in the UK that suffers from a PR disaster - there are London Eye, Millenium Bridge, Wembley stadium....

 

I do have some symphaty on British Airways, the public seem to be pointing fingers at the airline. BAA is partly responsible too, and they are not the greatest airport operators around.

 

Not to mention their disastrous rail "upgrade" project

 

Delayed for a couple of months now , causing us to change trains frequently/ cram carriages <_>

[HijazKamalHasnan 0]

The Age reported about 15 000 lost luggage is stranded in Heathrow.

[Walter Sim 1]

Today flights are cancelled too due to the baggage problem..

[LeeCH 0]

Sad to see that the airport management did not learn from experts in Singapore. T3 opened without any major drama with the exception that a few passengers ended up in T2 on opening day. Really have to take my hats off to the team in Singapore who planned so well in the many days before T3 started operations. All the staff (pilots/cabin crew/ ground staff/engineers/immigration/security/transfer trains) had live sessions with a few real commercial flights operating out of T3 even long before its official opening. The fruits of 'Kiasi' (afraid to die').

[Pieter C. 5]

Heathrow Service A National Embarrassment - IATA

 

June 2, 2008

Service levels at London's Heathrow Airport are a "national embarrassment", the head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Monday.

 

The airport was plunged into chaos in March following the opening of the GBP4.3 billion pound (USD$8.5 billion) Terminal 5.

 

British Airways cancelled hundreds of flights and misplaced tens of thousands of pieces of luggage in the wake of its move there. Subsequently it parted company with two senior managers.

 

"This year's Worst Regulator Award goes to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Look at Heathrow. Service levels are a national embarrassment," IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani said in a speech at its annual meeting in Istanbul.

 

"But still the CAA increased charges by 50 percent over the last five years and plan 86 percent for the next five. Could anyone in this room ask for a fare increase of 86 percent? Nobody. That only happens in monopoly land," he said.

 

(Reuters)