I've been out of the country for the past 3 weeks but am now in London. Planning on flying out on BA to Athen's to pick up a Rick Steve's tour. Anyone have experience with the new terminal in the past couple of days (I know it was a disaster in the first few days of operation).
Posted by
Scotland
505 posts
The news isn't getting better...
The snow this morning combined with more luggage problems resulted in 100+ flights being cancelled out of Terminal 5.
Apparently most of the cancellations were due to snow, not luggage issues. It's been one bugger of a spring...I was stuck in Brussels for three hours on March 25 because of snow. And that's not a very large airport, nor one that usually has to deal with snow...
Kate
Posted by
SF Bay Area, CA
2030 posts
I would verify your flight is not cancelled, and not check any luggage!
Update -- as of 4/6 still "chaos" in Terminal 5, as described by the Guardian newspaper. Good luck over there!
Posted by
TX
515 posts
A friend's sister returned home last weekend to Detroit from New Delhi, following a botanical adventure in Nepal, with plane change at Terminal 5...all baggage from their huge British Airways flight is still there, "in storage," over a week later, with promise it will be delivered at some point.
And now there is SNOW.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/07/nba107.xml
From British news article: "Hundreds of flights have been cancelled and tens of thousands of bags have gone missing since the shambolic opening of the £4.3 billion terminal on March 27. BA had been expecting the problems at the terminal to be fixed and to operate a full schedule for the first time on Saturday, but it ended up cancelling 24 flights that day. BA described the situation as "incredibly disappointing" and said that the problems were expected to cost it at least £16million."
Posted by
Nottingham, UK
658 posts
Interestingly - the only UK airline that had problems with the snow on Sunday were BA. UK carriers out of T1 and T3 suffered only minor delays or none at all.
T5 is still the single biggest disaster to hit Heathrow, that includes 9/11, the fire in the entrance tunnel and the baggage handlers strikes.
Posted by
Napa, CA
3580 posts
The Sunday travel section in the San Francisco Examiner had a little article about the luggage problems at T5. Apparently a lot of the mis-placed luggage will be sorted in Milan!
Posted by
Scotland
505 posts
The articles claims that many delays were due to the runway being closed for an hour. Which should have affected all airlines equally. But, I'm a bit suspicious...it's a very convenient excuse for BA to blame something other than the luggage!
I was wondering if that article on Milan was BBC Online's April Fool story. But at this stage, nothing about T5 is too weird to believe...
Kate
Posted by
Nottingham, UK
658 posts
The Milan story is true. It's actually a good move. The company in Milan specialises in re-uniting owners with their bags. The only bags that are being sent to Milan are ones where the bag-tag indicates the final destination for the bag is on mainland Europe.
North American passengers delayed bags are still being handled from T5. By our reckoning passengers will receive their bags at around the same time as the Pope get's back from his honeymoon.
Posted by
Freedonia
16287 posts
The Pope is coming to the U.S. Perhaps he can bring some of the bags.
Posted by
TX
515 posts
:-) I just love the daily chuckles I get from reading this helpline. :-) Marie, I surely hope you and your bags make it to Athens and you have a super tour!
Posted by
Seattle, WA
1317 posts
I know that opening of a new anything can cause confusion and delays (untrained staff, untested equipment, etc.) but for the life of me I can't figure out how BA managed to fall on its face so badly. I read one article that said flights were cancelled due to a computer glitch in processing luggage...with all the other missing bags, why cancel flights over misplaced luggage?
I also haven't seen any indication that the Terminal 5 mess is much affecting other flights in and out of Heathrow. True?
Just makes me glad I'm not going through there until November (and then will be on NWA so will hopefully avoid T5!)
Posted by
London, UK
1 posts
BA is planning to operate a full schedule of flights from Heathrow Terminal 5 now that the baggage system software problem has been sorted,and the snow has gone, but it's best to check your flight's status at
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/arrdep/public/en_gb
Flight problems are more likely at Terminal 5, BA is still operating some flights from other terminals at Heathrow without problems.
Good luck