Heathrow Terminal 5 chaos sees 28,000 bags kept in storage

THE Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) fiasco has led to 28,000 bags being placed in temporary storage and it could take up to a week to get them returned to their owners, the British Government announced yesterday.

Aviation Minister Jim Fitzpatrick told the House of Commons that passengers using the new £4.3 billion (€5.4bn) terminal had suffered “an unacceptably poor experience”.

He said passengers should get the help and compensation they were entitled to.

Mr Fitzpatrick was speaking as BA had to cancel a further 54 flights at T5, with a further 50 flights being axed today.

Mr Fitzpatrick said that since T5 opened last Thursday, the baggage system had become “clogged” and had actually stopped functioning on a number of occasions.

“Delivery so far has fallen well short of expectation.”

He said he had visited T5 and had seen “just how devastated individual staff members were”.

“The travelling public is not interested in who is to blame... but rather in being properly treated when things go wrong.”

He said the Department for Transport had been in constant contact with BA and with Heathrow operator BAA, and the department was assisting BA with appropriate help with security.

The Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers said: “Both BA and BAA have let their customers down badly.”

She added that the T5 debacle had enforced views that Heathrow was “a national embarrassment”.

Queues did die down today at T5.

Aviation analysts reckoned these baggage problems could cost BA anything between £20 million and £50m.

But BA can take comfort from the fact that some passengers appeared to give the airline and T5 the benefit of the doubt yesterday.