BA chief: mistakes were made

Last Modified: 28 Mar 2008
By: Lucy Manning

British Airways boss Willie Walsh admits the chaos at Heathrow's Terminal 5 "was not our finest hour".

The chief executive of British Airways, Willie Walsh, has apologised to passengers affected by the chaos at Heathrow Airport's new terminal.

Travellers have endured a second day of cancellations and delays at Terminal 5, caused by baggage and security hold-ups. And there are expected to be problems tomorrow.

Mr Walsh refused to blame the airport's operator, BAA, for the chaos. But he said the company and British Airways had made mistakes.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh admitted that yesterday had not been his company's finest hour. It wasn't their finest day two, either.

Today BA's boss was full of apologies. But yet more of his customers were spending longer than they had hoped at the new Terminal 5. The airline cancelled around one-fifth of its flights as it tried to get a grip on a disastrous opening.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh admitted that yesterday had not been his company's finest hour. It wasn't their finest day two either, with some passengers reduced to sleeping at the airport.

Today there were still what BA called "minor problems" with getting the luggage onto the planes. The focus is now on why this new and technologically advanced baggage system seemed to crumble under the pressure.

Airport operator BAA is not out of the line of fire, with the Tories hinting its airport dominance could be broken up.

BAA had boasted that over 400,000 man hours had gone into developing the baggage handling area. Bags are given bar codes, sent on a conveyor belt, and automatically directed to the right loading area.

But union sources say staff, who are now allocated to areas electronically, did not know where to go.

And airport operator BAA is not out of the line of fire, with the Tories hinting that its airport dominance could be broken up.

T5 will not be back to normal tomorrow - one-sixth of all flights are cancelled. It seems they are still not confident the baggage system can cope.