London UK: Heathrow Terminal 5’s disastrous opening was costly and embarrassing. Today the Head of BAA aplogised to MP’s

The head of Heathrow operator BAA has told MPs he was “not aware” in advance that there were likely to be problems with the airport’s new Terminal 5 (T5).
BAA chief executive Colin Matthews also told the House of Commons Transport Committee that 17 of T5’s lifts were still not working - more than five weeks after the £4.3 billion facility’s disastrous opening on March 27.

He apologised “unreservedly” for the T5 difficulties, admitted that BAA was to blame for “some of the problems” and added that BAA had not yet investigated “who knew what or when” in advance about the likely problems the terminal might face.

The £4.3 billion new terminal, officially opened by the Queen on March 14, had a catastrophic operational opening on March 27 with dozens of flights delayed, the baggage system failing and huge queues building up.

Blame everyone else why don’t you! Instead of opening with a few flights to see how it goes it seems BAA wanted to go from zero to full capacity on day one. Instead of Colin listening to the voice inside him saying, “it’s impossible, yes but if you pull it off you’ll look really good. He should have listened to my Auntie Doris, she would have told Colin that was inevitably going to lead to disaster.

The fiasco did inspire a hilarious song from a couple of chaps stranded at the airport: