Heathrow

To be honest, i'd be surprised if there weren't issues on the first day.

Someone on the radio yesterday suggested that problems on the first day simply wasn't news, problems after a few months would be newsworthy, and problems in a year would be pretty big news, but it's the FIRST DAY, get over it...

Phil

well said Phil - I think it was pretty churlish of the media and the BBC in particular who could barely conceal their glee at the problems with their smirking newsreaders. I found that attitude a somewhat depressing indictment of the British capacity to knock our achievements.

truth told every major airport opening in recent years has been characterised by problems worldwide.

I think my three year old daughter said it best when she watched a member of the public blowing off at some poor BA staff member on camera:

"That lady is very rude, they should smack her bottom"

Anyway, on a more positive note here's some photos of the truly impressive new T5:

http://www.sqtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3917

Jonathan

One of the large US airports was closed/not opened for a year while they sorted it out.

quote:

Originally posted by Jonathan Gorse:
well said Phil - I think it was pretty churlish of the media and the BBC in particular who could barely conceal their glee at the problems with their smirking newsreaders.

Jonathan

That really gets my goat too Jonathan!

...hang on a sec.

Multi-billion pound terminal. Launched with great fanfare. Fails at its most essential job-getting people on flights reliably. Multiple cancellations, lost bags etc etc.

What about testing systems? What about opening in stages to allow gradual build-up to full operation? Sure BA is popular to knock but if you sing and dance so much about your fancy new terminal and it goes wrong then people are going to notice!

A bet the shops all worked perfectly.

Bruce (who quit flying some years ago at least in part because airports are such a pain in the posterior)

I agree that it was totally unecessary for the bbc and other media to "gloat" over the problems at T5, however, this rather more measured response from the DG of the BCC (lifted from the bbc website) captures the real, underlying issue ie you only get ONE shot at "First impression"

David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said the "shambles" had sent a "depressing message to businesses around the world".

"This is a PR disaster at a time when London and the UK are positioning themselves as global players. We can only hope that this will provide a wake-up call as we gear ourselves up to host the Olympics in 2012."

Its an unmitigated disaster that BA (and probably BAA) need to mitigate pretty dam quick.

Cheers

Don

"This is a PR disaster at a time when London and the UK are positioning themselves as global players. We can only hope that this will provide a wake-up call as we gear ourselves up to host the Olympics in 2012."

Just as well the new Wembley stadium went off without a hitch then!

It's a very quiet newsweek. If there had been anything of significance to write/talk about T5 would have been downgraded.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BigH47:
"This is a PR disaster at a time when London and the UK are positioning themselves as global players. We can only hope that this will provide a wake-up call as we gear ourselves up to host the Olympics in 2012."

BAA & BA should learn it's better to soft open before moving all traffic over to the "world beating T5" what a complete joke and as for the customer relations - WAKE UP BA!!

There are lot's of alternatives out there

quote:

Just as well the new Wembley stadium went off without a hitch then!

Doesn't seem to bode too well, does it?

OTOH, I think success is often down to forsight, drive and attention to detail of a few individuals. The new Arsenal statium was opened successfully on time a couple of years ago - and the same design/build team is heavily involved with the Olympics. John Armit, who turned Railtrack in Administration into a sucessful Network Rail moved to the Olympic team last year (Network Rail has suffered since he left). Armit was instrumental in getting the Channel Tunnel Rail Link off the ground and likewise the Second Severn Crossing. So perhaps its not all doom and gloom?

Cheers

Don

I volunteered to help test T5 but hey turned me down so I was saved the experience of hanging around an airport for 7 hours and not going any where. This would have been better than my experience of waiting 43 hours for a delayed flight to take off a few years ago....

From I have read and heard - the operational running of the terminal had been practiced and was OK , however they had not tested the first day start up process - ie arrival of staff, unlocking of gates, positioning of staff, logging on to the systems for the first time - the true one off event.

As for the Olympics they take place in 2014 don't they.

Agree. Gloating is never called for but it's good to see someone actually get booted up the arse.

At every opportunity over the last 2 years whenever there's been a delay or issue at Heathrow it's been....."Oh things will be so much better when Terminal 5 opens."

Ah ha.

It's about time someone was caught out. Lets face it. Running at full capacity from day 1 is pretty arrogant especially when you are launching a complex "system".

What about the plan to fingerprint someone in the transfer hall - even if they were a domestic traveller? The plan is to mix both International and Domestic traveler at the gates no doubt to maximise revenue from the pretty stores.

I know where there priorities are. Telling someone that their flight is cancelled and have them turning up at the airport expecting to go on holiday obviously is not a high one. Good to see the new terminal has solved that problem.

Rant over

It used to be that to fly to most places you had to go to Heathrow, which is not handy for a good deal of the UK, and the rise of the regional airports is nothing but a good thing.

On the other hand for those in London, it is handy, more so I imagine for most than Gatwick or Stanstead [Aaagh, Standstead], and it is surely essential that Heathrow is effectively run. The idea of enlarging it with a third runway, under the current management must look a less likely prospect now.

It seems blindingly obvious to me that there is a considerable disjunction between those at the top of the management of this and the actual details of the attempt at getting it right. My feeling is that unless it is made to run correctly rather quickly, then in the National Interest heads need to roll over this at the highest levels in BA and the BAA.

George

The whole thing is one big clusterf### of the highest order. I always try to avoid Thiefrow when flying back to the UK if at all possible and on the basis of the last few days it looks like I'll be trying even harder in the future!

Where will the buck stop with this one? 15,000 - 20,000 bags out of 225,000 "processed" still stuck at all corners of the airport. From my vantage point (admittedly some distance away) this looks absolutely amateurish and BA deserves every piece of bad press it is getting.

Regards

Jim

T5 is not running at full capacity at cutover - so far they have moved T1 traffic and some of the BA T3 traffic - there is still a lot of BA traffic going in and out of T4.

Unfortunately you need a load of staff to run a terminal whether it is running at full or half or third load and some how they had to magic staff to run an additional terminal.

That will not quite do Derek,

If they want to staff a business, then they have to appoint the staff in timely fashion to ensure that they are fully trained and aware of back-up systems for when things go wrong. It is not as if they are a some shoe-string budget enterprise is it? I am sure that budget airlines will rightly, totally replace the BA dynosaur in a few years, and I say, "Good 'oh!"

I am glad BA are not running Nuclear Power Stations. Or Ambualance Services. Oh hang on: they do have to organise serious issues of safety! I hope that the safety managers are better than what their ones managing T5 are. It looks horribly amateur to me, who promisses never to go through Heathrow again. Last time was in 2002, and it was a terrible mess then.

George

Janathon

quote:

well said Phil - I think it was pretty churlish of the media and the BBC in particular who could barely conceal their glee at the problems with their smirking newsreaders. I found that attitude a somewhat depressing indictment of the British capacity to knock our achievements.

If you were one of the thousands of travellers/holidaymakers who had their trips ruined/severely disrupted/cancelled don't you think you would have been more than a little pissed off? What surprises me is the excuses that are being made "it's the first day, so what do you expect" sort of approach. I tell you what I would expect if I was a paying customer, I would expect the "system" to work as it was supposed to work - that's what the people responsible for the project planning are paid to do I thought.

BigH47

quote:

One of the large US airports was closed/not opened for a year while they sorted it out.

What one was that then?

Jim

quote:

What one was that then?

I can't remember Atlanta or Denver maybe? I'm sure some one else from the US will know. It was mentioned on Big,Bigger,Biggest programme last week. 2 of the major contributions to air travel were British:-
Air traffic control (Croydon) and terminal buildings (Gatwick) the " Bee Hive" opened in a smoother way I believe.

Re T5 I still think BAA is more culpable and is unwilling to admit it.

It was Denver - it took a very long after it "opened" before it was usable.

See
other troublesome airports



Denver Specifically

and as for staffing up for the staffing bubble - I guess by your reckoning it is then OK to lay off the freshly recruited staff once you have consolidated into the new building.

quote:

terminal buildings (Gatwick) the " Bee Hive" opened in a smoother way I believe.

was that before WW2 or just after?

Cheers

Don

quote:

was that before WW2 or just after?

1935 I believe.
There was also a tunnel from Gatwick Airport station to the BeeHive and covered extendable walkways to the planes,so you could train in and get your plane without getting wet/or burnt

Derek

Good background information but given previous lessons from Denver, Hong Kong and Bangkok you would think that good project planners would look at lessons learned and make appropriate contingency plans. Denver was apparently a huge software failure in the baggage handling system whereas Thiefrow seems to be a host of compounding problems.

I would love to see the risk register and other project artifacts for this effort!

Cheers

Jim

JIm

I agree that T5 cutover planning is somewhat lacking, I have heard tales of missing keys that prevented staff getting in to work at 4am on the first day etc etc. I would suspect that the main issue was "no bad news can go up the management chain" syndrome - ie "Do not tell me your problems, just tell me your solutions".



Bit like the planning for the aftermath of the Iraq invasion.

Derek,

I think you're absolutely right that the culture of British management is increasingly one of immovable project deadlines even in the face of justified objections from those who are on the ground offering reasons why a project should be delayed.

On the other hand undoubtedly BAA are about the last people on earth you'd ever want running your airport terminal so a good amount of blame surely must lie with them too, but to the travelling public who have bought a ticket to fly on BA there's a natural assumption it must be the airline's fault when things go wrong (which is not always the case.)

I'm optimistic that in a week or so things will have settled down but it's been a debacle for sure and a sad few days for British aviation. Pity it didn't happen to that schmuck O'Leary!

Jonathan

quote:

and as for staffing up for the staffing bubble - I guess by your reckoning it is then OK to lay off the freshly recruited staff once you have consolidated into the new building.

That's a rather simplistic trade-off isn't it?

If the arrangement was a little more flexible and staff paid fairly for that flexibility wouldn't you be able to keep your customers happy and have a smooth staffed operation?

If this is supposed to be a new world terminal then how's about some new world thinking to go along with it.