Check-in suspended at £4.3bn T5

Don't know if anyone mentioned this but, in general the "testing" done on these systems is often done by the people that built it and know how the hell it works.

The biggest problem with massive systems that at some stage require user input is, all the idiots who screw it up, log in one bag twice, miss one bag so theres an extra floating around, whatever. You simply can never account for user error and the learning curve of stupid people or account for simple mistakes which are far more likely in a highly pressured situation like first day at work, first day in a new work place etc, etc.


But as with all things, that sod, you know with his law, something will go wrong when you need it working perfectly and when nothing is really on the line, nothing fails.
 
Well, if I interpreted the BBC reports correctly, then while it seems there were certainly some computer issues, a lot of the problem is/was down to the same-old-same-old Heathrow nightmare - BA baggage handling. You can have the best computer systems and testing in the world, but if you employ staff at the end of the line who are incapable of taking the baggage off the conveyors and getting it out and loaded on the planes in a timely manner, then the technical people may as well not have bothered.

Let's face it, BA certainly don't have a particularly enviable reputation for getting bags where they're supposed to go now, do they?
 
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Caged said:
I thought getting bags on the plane was done airport-wide by Servisair, rather than BA having their own people?
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I watched a documentary the other day and this terminal is a BA exclusive terminal and they are using their own staff so that they can guarantee a quality service..:p
 
It's not rocket science. If I was in charge of T5 I wouldn't have opened it like a light switch. That is just asking for trouble. You scale these things up. Gradually over the course of a month you put more and more flights via T5. So that when things DO go wrong (and they will) it keeps the affected numbers to a minimum and gives you time to resolve them.
 
I flew from Copenhagen yesterday to Terminal 5. Luckly, I didn't have any hand luggage, however I had to be placed on an earlier flight as no one knew exactly what was happening. This "earlier" flight only left about 30min before my scheduled flight rather than 3 hours as it should have done.

At the same time, BA were handing out Champagne in Copenhagen to celebrate Terminal 5 opening, which I suppose did dampen the complaints...

When landing, the flight had to wait as there was no space at the terminal. Secondly, the jetty (or whatever that is called) is different at T5 and took a good 10-15 min to connect to the aircraft (I'm guessing that this was simply due to lack of training/experience).

Had an issue with the border control. It took them a very long time to get enough staff, in the beginning the queue was moving slowly, however 20 odd min later the queue started moving rather quickly.

My only gripe with the terminal was with the sign posts for the Underground. I don't think they are very well placed.

The building does look nice, however I only saw a little bit of it as I arrived rather than departed. Hopefully I will get to see all of it soon enough.
 
The baggage system in T5 is two systems that run in parallel if one system fails then the other is designed to take all of the load of a fully working terminal. The fact that the system failed when operating well under capacity with both systems coming to a stop is just a glitch it isnt the system being overloaded. All the longhaul A/C are still operating out of T4 its only the shorthaul and the few T1 longhaul that moved to T5 on the 27th not the whole BA operation.

One of the biggest problems I have heard is the amount of time it has taken staff to get through security to get to their posts. It took me well over an hour to get airside in the terminal on Wednesday with only one out of the four security check points we tried letting staff through. Another thing is the sheer size of the place it will take the staff a long time to work out where everthing is as it just so big and it all looks the same in the staff coridoors. Behind the scenes though there are contractors everywhere finishing it off which is pretty poor considering the time they have had to build it.

As for inside the shops they are all super expensive which is a huge disapointment, there is a boots and dixons up stairs then the rest of the shops I saw were the likes of prada, Gucci, Harrods, cigars and caviar there isnt a lot for normal shoppers like most of us. Even the bars dont look cheap(although i didnt see prices). I have some cool photos of the terminal before it was accepting A/C too.
 
Another great reason not to fly with BA :)


I am quite happy it has monumentally failed, when I heard it on the radio I laughed and said "good"

I am all for airport expansion, we need more to cope with the amount of passengers, but as usual in this day and age we can't organise a party in a brewery.

Just glad the last time I will go through Heathrow will be on a 747 bound for NZ :)
 
Baz said:
Another great reason not to fly with BA :)


I am quite happy it has monumentally failed, when I heard it on the radio I laughed and said "good"

I am all for airport expansion, we need more to cope with the amount of passengers, but as usual in this day and age we can't organise a party in a brewery.

Just glad the last time I will go through Heathrow will be on a 747 bound for NZ :)
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Hopefully that is sooner rather than later. What a bitter post.
 
Why is it that most problems with things like this come down to badly planned, badly thought out and badly implemented computer systems?

On a much smaller scale my wife's work has been having a new computer system installed and so far it has taken 6 months and gotten nowhere. Looks like BA got the same developers! Maybe even the same ones the Government use (Capita I am looking at you!)

:rolleyes:
 
Wicksta said:
Hopefully that is sooner rather than later. What a bitter post.
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Not really, I am all for T5 and love it's design, but it is opened to early, BAA knew there were problems, and still opened it up to only cancel flights and send people without hold luggage.
They hyped the opening up to much so it made headline news, but for the wrong reasons, it is their own fault and I have no sympathy except for the passengers and people who work there.
 
Not surprised in the slightest, BAA and BA are shambolic in how they planned the inauguration.

Pathetic planning by BAA's management yet again. And who on Earth gave the order to depart the planes with the bags on the runway/being shuffled back in?
 
My personal opinion is that its got the potential to be a great place but its ruined by BAA running it. It should have been finished two months before BA even thought about moving in. The same as any big scale project managed by UK management in the UK its not ready in time and even with all the planning its not perfect for the job. Roll on 2012.

Another funny thing is that they didnt design toilets on the ramp for workers so they have now dotted around silver portaloos, silver so they kind of match the rest of the new ramp and dont stand out to much. Who designed it and forgot toilets!
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I havent read all of the responces, but just to make it clear....

It was a fault in the actual bag machinery...that all worked fine.........it was a BAG HANDLERS!...there wasnt wnought of them....those that where there didnt know where to go or what to do, as, with a lot of the staf fin the building..this cause the bags to be back logged into the system and made the whole things seize up....

Some of the comments in here are just stupid.......engineering is fine...its the **** British service as usual lol.
 
I did some preventative maintenance work on the cabling at Heathrow (Terminal 4).

If it's anything like that then I'm suprised it's running at all tbh.

Oh, and you have to have ID cards, lanyards and all the kaboodle before even setting foot in the restricted areas, so it doesn't suprise me that there are delays (which is fair enough, but damn, that place is like a prison!) Teething problems were inevitable, but as usual the media has a hold of it, and will rip it a new one (quite rightly, given the balls up)! There's probably some seriously P'd off people at T5 looking for a contractors to blame.
 
Dandle said:
My personal opinion is that its got the potential to be a great place but its ruined by BAA running it. It should have been finished two months before BA even thought about moving in. The same as any big scale project managed by UK management in the UK its not ready in time and even with all the planning its not perfect for the job. Roll on 2012.

Another funny thing is that they didnt design toilets on the ramp for workers so they have now dotted around silver portaloos, silver so they kind of match the rest of the new ramp and dont stand out to much. Who designed it and forgot toilets!
IMG_1569.jpg
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Dandle, whereabouts and do you work at T5 and who for, BA I presume? I started work airside over at T5BN yesterday (longhaul) and I can say I didn't see any of the problems menttioned here and in the media, I was in a totally different building/area. Saying that, it did take me a long time to get to work, its a bit of a shlap from the the motorcycle park to T5B.
From what I can gather, engineering 's situation isn't too bad, just most of the spares aren't in our stores, they're in the EAA, and the line side stores aren't full yet, but thats no real problem for us. All in all, engineering's move has gone relatively smoothly, at least in our area.
 
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