My Journey of Despair Through Heathrow's T5 ; Flights Are Now Returning to Normal After the Weekend's Disruption. But One Writer Says It Will Take Much Longer to Iron Out the New Terminal's Many Problems

Summary

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POOR Willie. British Airways's boss has seen his shiny new terminal become a worldclass joke, his company's credibility crumble, its share price dive and its promise of a dividend (the first in seven years) imperilled. His staff are close to despair, with his pilots on the verge of striking. The airline's dire record for late arrivals and lost luggage is now worse than ever. Many of its angry passengers are vowing they will never fly BA again. Then on Sunday, just as he thought things couldn't get worse, it snowed.

Willie Walsh has invited us to blame him personally, and everyone seems keen to take him up on it. But how much of this grotesque fiasco has really been BA's fault? I can tell you from first-hand experience that T5's debut has been quite as bad as the headlines suggest. How right the transport secretary Ruth Kelly was, albeit for the wrong reasons, when she predicted the new terminal was "destined to become one of London's most iconic transport buildings".

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My Journey of Despair Through Heathrow's T5 ; Flights Are Now Returning to Normal After the Weekend's Disruption. But One Writer Says It Will Take Much Longer to Iron Out the New Terminal's Many Problems

Undoubtedly BA is culpable for some of its own humiliation. In particular, the sparsely staffed Fast Bag Drop is a classic oxymoron, with long queues at every counter.

This is cheapskate contempt for passengers entirely at odds with BA's business proposition as a high-class a...

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