Check-in suspended at £4.3bn T5

pieman109 said:
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.
Click to expand...

I'm not based in T5 but have been working over there. I was under the impression only T5A S satalite was operational along with EAA I didnt know you guys had moved into T5B but thats all that I saw working on the 26th. I agree from engineerings points of vew it has been pretty smooth(as much as can be expected anyway) but I think the engineering move has been slightly better planned than some of the other areas. The main problems I had on the moving day were the lack of BAA man power on security points. BAA just didnt seem ready or geared up for what was about to happen, as it turns out it doesnt look like a lot of BA was either.lol
 
I'm a bit dissapointed to see Litter on the floor in that pic of the loo, Poor show.
 
Dandle said:
I'm not based in T5 but have been working over there. I was under the impression only T5A S satalite was operational along with EAA I didnt know you guys had moved into T5B but thats all that I saw working on the 26th. I agree from engineerings points of vew it has been pretty smooth(as much as can be expected anyway) but I think the engineering move has been slightly better planned than some of the other areas. The main problems I had on the moving day were the lack of BAA man power on security points. BAA just didnt seem ready or geared up for what was about to happen, as it turns out it doesnt look like a lot of BA was either.lol
Click to expand...

Agreed about the security points, apparently they lost the keys to one of the security post's shutters so it couldn't be used, the T5A south one. Be interesting to see how it all goes today when I roll in for work at 2:30pm.
 
no different to the opening of the last terminal at hong kong as well....stuff happens that you cannot plan for...it will work itself out eventually..but in the meantime it gives us the opportunity to do what we do best as a nation..have big whinge about it!
 
FTM said:
no different to the opening of the last terminal at hong kong as well....stuff happens that you cannot plan for...it will work itself out eventually..but in the meantime it gives us the opportunity to do what we do best as a nation..have big whinge about it!
Click to expand...

It is akin to being the first with a new bit of technology (Blue-Ray, HD TV, any first generation Apple kit) as in you get all the kinks included.

Give T5 a few months (just like your Blue-Ray player) and it will be running nice an smoothly. :)
 
I'm hoping that's the case because I'll be flying out to Portugal in August so a few months is all they've got - problem is that I'll be going with 100 odd other kids aged 12-18 so getting them through T5 could be a nightmare !
 
TheOtherOption said:
I'm hoping that's the case because I'll be flying out to Portugal in August so a few months is all they've got - problem is that I'll be going with 100 odd other kids aged 12-18 so getting them through T5 could be a nightmare !
Click to expand...

Friend of mine was scheduled to fly out of T5 today, however they got moved to T4 because of all the problems.
 
NathanE said:
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.
Click to expand...

Not always possible for plenty of reasons. Trying to run two sites simultaneously stretches your resources pretty think when you're doing something like this, and thats what'd they would have been doing if they'd moved bit by bit.

It is possible, look at eurostar, moved across london overnight and never any problems I heard about...
 
Thing is, it's not like BAA don't know how to run a terminal, how did they get it soo wrong?
 
They should have made sure that there weren't monkeys running the baggage handling system behind scenes for starters - or at least made sure that there were enough present to at least unload bags from the conveyor and stop it grinding to a halt like it evidently did!
 
Booner! said:
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
Click to expand...
Does anyone know what the documentary was called and what channel it was on? Sounds interesting, would be good to find out if it's ever repeated.
 
My boss just phoned me from T5 and said it was a dream getting through and really nice there. Nothing like the mayhem he expected after seeing the news reports, but that's not surprising I guess.
 
bigredshark said:
Not always possible for plenty of reasons. Trying to run two sites simultaneously stretches your resources pretty think when you're doing something like this, and thats what'd they would have been doing if they'd moved bit by bit.

It is possible, look at eurostar, moved across london overnight and never any problems I heard about...
Click to expand...

Munich airport moved lock stock and barrel about 15 miles overnight in the 90's, including all the machinery etc.
 
Wicksta said:
My boss just phoned me from T5 and said it was a dream getting through and really nice there. Nothing like the mayhem he expected after seeing the news reports, but that's not surprising I guess.
Click to expand...

Does he work for BA or BAA? :p
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Who built the system for T5? It smells of EDS.
Click to expand...
They've done a lot of stuff in T5 but I'm not sure they were solely or even partly responsible for the baggage handling system. I can probably find out their level of involvement if you really want to know?

If T5 had gone down the original route of RFID tags that would have allowed them to track every item of baggage in real time and to almost unnecessary levels of accuracy. Instead they've gone with 3D barcodes which are reliant on being scanned at every stage of their journey. Shame the scanners will only read the tags if they're in perfect condition and not anything that's been knocked about a bit, meaning what should be a quick process ends up taking far too long for the sheer volume of baggage.

Didn't help that they sacked a whole load of staff in the run-up to the opening of T5 saying the new automated systems will render them useless. Not when you need people to actually lift the damn bags off the conveyor system it won't.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom