Much as been written in the UK press about the embarrassment to the nation caused by the problems surrounding British Airways' move to Terminal 5 ... so there were some problems; too much luggage went missing; some flights were cancelled ... but I for one thought the whole thing was blown out of proportion. As questions were asked in Parliament, I couldn't help wondering whether the vast majority of people really cared.
The move was a major logistical operation which, by all accounts, went more smoothly than recent airport openings in Bangkok and, going back a bit, Hong Kong and Denver. It was the PR that BA got wrong.
But despite being defensive of BA over the last couple of weeks, I was nevertheless quite grateful to be flying out of Terminal 4 on a BA flight last night ... until I got there ... I had checked in on line and done everything that BA had asked me to do on the website, but at the 'Fast Bag Drop' area, there was a 30 minute queue, and only 2 desks open.
Challenging one of 4 BA staff marshalling the queue, they apologised profusely and said that this was commonplace ..."all the staff have moved to Terminal 5 to sort out the mess there ..."
Hey ho ...
James Mendelssohn (jmendelssohn@msiglobal.org)