Queues and chaos at Heathrow's new facility
The London airport's long-awaited Terminal 5 aimed to 'redefine air travel' and it may have -- but not in the manner intended -- with its calamitous debut.
LONDON — Heathrow has always been the bad boy of European airports, an international crossroads that periodically morphs into a black hole of chaos and delay with no more provocation than a good English fog.
Even by Heathrow's standards, though, the debut of the long-awaited Terminal 5 -- the spacious, $8.6-billion facility that was intended to put a halt to passenger queues once and for all -- has turned into a quagmire of misplaced bags, canceled flights and stranded passengers exceeding all pessimistic expectations.
On Monday, four days after the facility's calamitous opening day, a total of 15,000 bags remained undelivered, 54 more flights were canceled and there were no predictions, other than "soon," about when Heathrow would again run smoothly. At a special briefing at the House of Commons convened to explain the ruinous debacle that unfolded at what was supposed to be British aviation's finest hour, lawmakers ran out of epithets to hurl at Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick: "shambles," "grotesque incompetence," "major fiasco," and "unmitigated disaster" were among them.
"Yet again, the state of Heathrow is a national embarrassment," declared Theresa Villiers, transport spokeswoman for the opposition Conservative Party.
"It is a matter of national pride which has been dented," Fitzpatrick acknowledged. "When her majesty opened Terminal 5 . . . many of us believed that Heathrow had indeed turned the corner, and the bad publicity of recent years would turn into positive publicity . . . but clearly that has not been the case.
"I do believe ultimately, and within a short period of time, Terminal 5 will be a matter of great national pride," the transportation minister added. "We expect British Airways [and the British Airports Authority] to work together to ensure that solutions are found, and that there is as little disruption as possible to passengers."
Hiccups at major new airport terminal openings are not unusual. Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi International Airport opened in 2006 and immediately had problems with delayed bags and runway ruts; Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur both opened new airports in 1998 that suffered from computer problems and passenger delays; Denver's new airport, when it began operations in 1995, met with an immediate and catastrophic collapse of its much-touted automated bag-handling system.
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