London Heathrow airport's new Terminal 5 was hit by fresh flights disruption on Saturday when the baggage system suffered a major software problem, airports operator BAA said. "This morning a software problem has arisen in the baggage system at Terminal 5. This is entirely BAA's responsibility," a BAA spokeswoman said.
Heathrow's T5 opened last month with much fanfare from British Airways - the only carrier using the facility - but became a public relations disaster within hours when the baggage handling system became overwhelmed. "We apologise to BA and all passengers who have been affected, and we assure them that our specialist staff are working hard to resolve the problem and keep disruption to BA's operation to a minimum," BAA added on Saturday.
"We know what the problem is. We have a potential solution and we are having to carefully consider how and when we apply this to avoid further problems." British Airways had hoped to operate a full flying schedule on Saturday for the first time since T5 opened on March 27.
"We regret to announce that the BAA baggage system in Terminal 5 has suffered another computer problem today, which has caused disruption to British Airways flights," BA said in a separate statement on Saturday. "We are now having to manually reconcile bags for each flight which takes considerably more time than using the automated system.
"This has led to flight delays and as a result we have had to make a number of short haul cancellations." BA said last week that it expected the chaotic opening of T5 to cost the airline about 16 million pounds (20 million euros, 32 million dollars).
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