Audio: Day 1 at Heathrow

Thousands of families heading on holiday this weekend face chaos after Heathrow’s new £4.3 billion terminal was reduced to a shambles on its opening day by the complete failure of its baggage system.

British Airways will begin today to wrestle with a huge backlog of passengers, many of them left stranded at Terminal 5 overnight, after the airline cancelled at least 34 flights. So far today 44 flights into T5 have also been cancelled.

BA, the sole occupant of the new terminal, suspended baggage check-in shortly before 5pm and dozens of flights departed half-empty last night carrying only those passengers who had only hand luggage. Passengers on in-bound flights had to wait up to four hours for bags to be unloaded.

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BACKGROUND

• T5: 'More akin to a band-aid applied to a severed limb'

• Heathrow chaos to continue over weekend

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• Commentary: what a shambles

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The problems, which BA blamed on staff not being familiar with new systems, forced many outgoing travellers to abandon their plans and head home, or seek hotel accommodation in the hope that they could be included in flight schedules today. Passengers were handed letters from the airline saying that it was unable to provide them with hotel rooms but would consider reimbursing them for “some out-of-pocket expenses”.

The disastrous opening was a severe embarrassment for BA and BAA, the Spanish-owned company that operates Heathrow. Both had spent five years claiming that the new terminal would transform passengers’ experience of Heathrow and work efficiently from Day 1. Last night they blamed each other for the chaos inside Britain’s biggest free-standing building, which was opened by the Queen in a lavish ceremony two weeks ago.

BAA claimed that the baggage system was working properly but had become clogged with bags because BA had too few staff to unload them from conveyor belts. BA said that BAA had provided too few security staff to process its baggage handlers as they arrived for work.

More than an hour after suspending baggage check-in, BA issued advice to passengers telling them to turn up with only hand luggage. By then, thousands of people were already at the terminal with large cases that they could neither check in nor leave behind. A queue of more than 100 people wound back from the cancellation flights desk as people lined up to try to get refunds or rebook.

BA was still e-mailing regular passengers yesterday promising that it would take less than ten minutes to check in and get through security. It had also pledged to halve the number of lost bags.

BAA had claimed that the baggage system was the most advanced in the world, with belts travelling at 23mph and capable of handling 12,000 bags an hour. The system had been operating in test mode with thousands of dummy bags for the past 18 months.

BA had been preparing for the switch to Terminal 5 for three years and claimed that it had trained thousands of staff on the new systems. But many were delayed after being unable to park their cars or to find their way to their work stations. Several lifts were also out of action and screens were wrongly showing that gates had closed when no one had yet boarded.

Sir George Martin, the Beatles’ record producer, was among those caught up in the difficulties. He and Lady Martin had arrived about two hours before their flight to Zurich only to find that it was over-booked. Sir George said: “I was very excited about the new terminal, but not now.”

Melanie Browden, who arrived from Los Angeles, said: “I was waiting for three and a half hours for my bag. There was no information, I asked a manager what was going on and they laughed at me, telling me, ‘This is what happens with a new terminal’.”

In the long queue for those who had missed or had flights cancelled were Walter Henry, 66, a retired university lecturer from Holloway, North London, and his wife, Helen. Mr Henry said he had arrived in good time for a flight to Basle only to be “given six different directions from six different people to the departure lounge”.

Hertz Merkel, a German businessman flying to Düsseldorf, said: “This is real British organisation for you. I’ve only got hand baggage but I still have to stand in the same queue. It doesn’t look like I’ll be getting home today.”

A BA spokesman said: “We sincerely apologise to customers who have suffered disrupted journeys or baggage delays. We are working extremely hard on solutions to these short-term difficulties.”

One BA insider told how baggage came off the first flight from Hong Kong only because senior managers had helped to unload them from the aircraft.

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