Thomas Fischer, snooker player

For 12 years Thomas Fischer had desperately sought the perfect cue to compete around the world in snooker tournaments. British Airways told him today that it had lost his £700 handmade cue at Heathrow Terminal 5. He was due to take it to Glasgow to play in the European Team Championship on Sunday.

“The cue is priceless, to me. I won't stand a chance without it,” Mr Fischer, 32, from Zurich, told The Times. “This is disastrous, utterly disastrous.”

Mr Fischer, a software programmer who also owns a nightclub, left Switzerland this morning after booking his business class-seat to London and then on to Glasgow.

“I paid the extra to travel business class to ensure I was relaxed and refreshed for the tournament. I have now missed the scheduled flight to Glasgow and am certainly not relaxed. I fly on later today,” he said.

“I have been given a lost luggage form to fill in and they said they would courier the cue to my hotel once they find it. But what if they don't find it? I will have lost my baby. You get used to the cue. I practice every day with it. You live with it. It's like family. It's so familiar to me. Without it I won't play my best. How will I play the delicate shots?”

When Mr Fischer arrived at Heathrow he was directed from one baggage belt to another before being told that his prized possession could not be found.

He bought the cue three years ago after getting it built by Mastercraft, a British company. “I tried numerous cues and had been looking for 12 years. This one really suited me. It will be terrible if it is lost,” he said.

“This is the second time I have travelled with British Airways and I paid a higher price for the tickets. I am very disappointed. For BA this is more than just a bad day at work. I will now have to start the search for the perfect cue again.”

Sonia Winner, anxious mother

When Sonia Winner was told that flights had been cancelled or severely delayed she had particular cause for concern. Her two daughters, Amber, 11, and Rosie, 8, were travelling alone on a flight from the Netherlands.

The girls were flying back to Heathrow as part of the British Airways accompanied-minors scheme. The sisters had spent a week with their grandparents in Amsterdam and were due to fly back to London to attend a rehearsal for their uncle's wedding today where they are bridesmaids.

But they called their mother shortly before their early-morning flight to say that they had been repeatedly delayed because of the problems at Heathrow.

“It's slightly nerve-wracking for me. The girls are anxious too. They are on their own and just want to come home,” Ms Winner, a rug designer based in Hampstead, said. “They were due to arrive at 11am but they called me while sitting on the Tarmac to say that their flight was delayed. Now it has missed its slot.”

Sitting at a juice bar and nursing a cup of coffee at Terminal 5, she added: “The wedding rehearsal is at Westminster at 2pm. I told them to abandon their luggage at their grandparents so that we could get back to London quicker. They took all their clothes in plastic bags. I didn't want them to have to wait for their luggage, that could take forever.

“It will be annoying if they can't make the rehearsal. They won't know what to do on Sunday: they have never been bridesmaids before. There's also a pre-wedding dinner tonight for 30 people. The children will ring as soon as they are told that the flight has been cleared to take off.”

Robert Evans, Labour MEP

Robert Evans is a frequent flyer because of his job in the European Parliament. As a transport committee member he had exclusive access to Terminal 5 during its construction and said airport design was partly to blame for the shambles.

"There was no specific intention to fly out of Terminal 5 on the opening day, but I had an early morning meeting in Brussels," he said. “If I’ve got a meeting in Brussels that’s before 10am I fly, otherwise I take the train where I can.”

Mr Evans woke at 5am to catch the early flight but missed it when security refused the boarding pass he’d printed out at home and then two more printed out for him at BA check-in kiosks. “You can’t go through security if there’s less than 35 minutes until your flight so once that passed I was pushed on to a later flight,” he said. “It was all over the place. The screens tell you one thing and the people something else.

"I have enormous sympathy for BA and BAA because they have spent a long time testing these systems, but I wonder whether having a big bang and opening everything on day one was the way to do it. Yesterday put me off Heathrow but that was the end of day one. If at the end of week one, there are still these problems then serious questions need to be asked."

He said his plane was delayed for at least half an hour longer than it should have been because a fluorescent safety waistcoat was missing. "I am all for sensible health and safety but what it needed was someone to take the initiative. They should have been able to override this, just like they should have been able to override the security gates that won’t let people in less than 35 minutes before their flight."

He said Terminal 5's design meant it would never be a seamless experience because it wasn't possible to get to the gates quickly and signs were unclear, particularly for people who didn't speak English. "It was interesting to see that all of the expensive, high-quality shops and huge lounges were working yesterday. But with all of these the emphasis is taken away from processing people on to planes. T5 is about an experience where people are directed past shops where they will spend money; it’s essential to BAA’s revenue. Why do they need to sell televisions in an airport anyway?”

Peter Mühläusler, the man with no name

An Australian academic claimed that Terminal 5 had breached his human rights after new technology failed to recognise his name. Professor Peter Mühläusler said: "The computer technology can’t cope with the umlauts in my name. I had to go to some special help service. I was directed to a desk and they had to find someone who could help me.” The professor, who teaches lingusitics at Adelaide Univeristy, had been in London to give a speech and was flying on to Los Angeles. He suggested that the problem was due to cost cutting by BAA and said that he was appalled at technology "that violates my linguistic human rights. I felt threatened by this technology, my name is part of mÜy identity.”

He added: “This is the global age, not a monoculture. People from all over the world are travelling here. Whether someone’s name is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ should not be measured by the English language." Scandinavians and aboriginals had similar problems, he said.

Ros Marvin and Naomi Periselneris, medical students

For two hours Ros Marvin and Naomi Periselneris had prowled Terminal 5 hunting a comfortable seat. Armed with eye shades, ear plugs, noise-cancelling headphones, a blow-up cushion and a Buddhist manual offering transcendental serenity, the medical students were determined to find peace amid the chaotic scenes.

They had travelled seamlessly across the world without a single problem until they arrived at Heathrow.

Miss Marvin, 23, had flown for more than 30 hours from New Zealand, taking in Bangkok and Sydney, but when she arrived at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 she was told that her 45-minute flight with British Airways was cancelled. Both women were stranded for 12 hours before their flights home to Edinburgh, where they study at the university.

Draped across the large reclining sofa and clutching the Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama, Miss Marvin sighed: “I’m trying to stay positive. I’m in some weird kind of limbo world at the moment. I’ve been travelling for two months and reality will only start once I get back to Edinburgh.

“We are guarding this seat. We never leave it unattended. People are very jealous, we can see it in their eyes. The book has been very helpful, a source of serenity. My survival kit has shut out the noise and light of the terminal but I just can’t sleep. It feels like every other country in the world has run smoothly for me and then I come here and everything goes wrong."

Miss Periselneris, 24, was returning via New York after working in a hospital in South Africa. Miss Marvin had been working at Wellington Hospital in New Zealand.

They remain bewildered why their home country cannot run an airport like those they visited on their travels. “Why open a terminal if nothing works. It’s crazy,” Miss Marvin said.

The pair, friends at university, encountered each other by chance as they queued for two-and-a-half hours to rebook their BA flights to Edinburgh. When they eventually got to Terminal 5 they pleaded to be allowed into the executive lounge, citing fatigue and jet-lag as special circumstances worthy of a one-day membership. They were turned away. They instead found a barman making cocktails as part of the opening celebrations at the terminal. Miss Marvin, from York, said: “He saw that we needed a drink and persuaded us to try two drinks. It was only midday but we were past saying no. We then went to the make-up counters and had a free makeover to pass the time.” A trawl of the news stands and bookshops took up another hour, before they began loitering near those who looked likely to give up their comfortable chairs."

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