

Two hour waits, broken elevators, and 15,000 misplaced bags. It's just another day at London's Heathrow Airport.

Last week, amidst much hoopla and self-congratulation, British Airwaysopened its glittering new $8.6 billion Terminal 5 at Heathrow. The size of 50 football fields and capable of handling 30 million passengers a year, the modern, airy glass and steel extravaganza was supposed to be the answer to the chronic congestion that has made Heathrow one of the most detested airports in the world.

So far it hasn't worked out quite as planned. An opening day meltdown at T5 has resulted in hundreds of cancelled flights, something in the neighborhood of 15,000 lost bags, and a public relations nightmare for British Airways executives, who were said to be partying it up while chaos unfolded at their new showpiece.

According to reports from the British press (who, by the way, are having a field day ripping British Airways to shreds) the problems started with Terminal 5's super-high tech baggage handling system - a network of motorized carts and underground belts that can allegedly handle 12,500 bags per hour.

Many of the early shift baggage handlers reporting for work on opening day couldn't find parking spaces at the new terminal or got stuck at security checkpoints, creating a huge staffing shortage. Those who did make it in either couldn't log into the computerized baggage sorting system or didn't know how it worked (not good news if you handle baggage for a living). As a result belts began jamming up, and the first three flights of the morning took off without any luggage on board at all. Instead, those bags piled up at the terminal.

While the baggage handlers were struggling to get luggage from the terminal onto outbound flights, they also had to figure out how to deal with bags coming in on arriving flights. This didn't go so well, with some passengers waiting 90 minutes for luggage to arrive at baggage claim. Front line employees trying to manage the chaos claim that their desperate calls to supervisors went unanswered.

But wait, it gets better. Planes were forced to sit idle at the T5 gates while British Airways baggage handlers struggled to get them loaded and unloaded, which meant arriving flights had no place to park and began piling up on the tarmac. This made getting the right bag onto the right plane still more complicated, creating more delays, which in turn meant that even more bags piled up inside the sorting system. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally, baggage belts and carousels became so congested that the entire system just crashed. By late afternoon British Airways was asking passengers to fly with carry on luggage only or telling them outright that their bags wouldn't be traveling with them, making for a fantastic, passenger-focused travel experience all around.

Baggage was the main issue, but plenty of other stuff went wrong at Terminal 5, too. Check in desks were closed when the first passengers arrived on opening day. Escalators and elevators didn't work. Self pay kiosks in the parking garages malfunctioned. And as icing on the cake, a flashmob of "Stop Airport Expansion" protesters descended on the terminal that morning, forming the occasional conga line and further annoying passengers who were undoubtedly already wanting to kill someone.

The final tally at the end of the weekend: 15,000 bags sitting somewhere in the bowels of Terminal 5, hundreds of flights canceled, and a complete public relations disaster for British Airways. The airline needs to sort things out, and fast. It's locked in a fierce battle for passengers with its big European competitors Lufthansa and Air France-KLM. And while some of Europe's other hub airports leave a little to be desired (Frankfurt is sort of a dump), none of them have seen a meltdown like the one at Terminal 5.

Graffiti found scrawled on a bathroom wall at Terminal 5 perhaps sums it up best: "Welcome to hell."

Sources: BBC, Guardian UK, Sunday Mirror

Photo: Reuters