London Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, has taken over the entire front page of his airline’s weekly staff newspaper to apologise for disruption that meant the £4.3 billion Terminal 5 at Heathrow ground to a halt within hours of opening.

Plans for a celebratory edition of British Airways News were scrapped as Mr Walsh told staff: “I am very sorry that we let you down.”

Under the headline “We’ll Make It Work”, Mr Walsh wrote: “We got things wrong and I’m sorry.” He went on: “Last Thursday was a disaster for us and for many of our customers. They deserved better and we let them down.”

Mr Walsh told staff that the chaotic scenes at the terminal – which involved angry passengers, cancelled flights and lost baggage – were not all the fault of the airline but he said he was not going to blame anyone else. Mr Walsh wrote: “If you want someone to blame, blame me.”

Mr Walsh said that the next planned switch of Terminal 4 flights to the new base may be delayed until everything was working smoothly.

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