Queues and chaos at Heathrow’s new facility

Heathrow has always been the bad boy of European airports, an international crossroads that periodically morphs into a black hole of chaos and delay with no more provocation than a good English fog.

Even by Heathrow’s standards, though, the debut of the long-awaited Terminal 5 -- the spacious, $8.6-billion facility that was intended to put a halt to passenger queues once and for all -- has turned into a quagmire of misplaced bags, canceled flights and stranded passengers exceeding all pessimistic expectations.

On Monday, four days after the facility’s calamitous opening day, a total of 15,000 bags remained undelivered, 54 more flights were canceled and there were no predictions, other than “soon,” about when Heathrow would again run smoothly. At a special briefing at the House of Commons convened to explain the ruinous debacle that unfolded at what was supposed to be British aviation’s finest hour, lawmakers ran out of epithets to hurl at Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick: “shambles,” “grotesque incompetence,” “major fiasco,” and “unmitigated disaster” were among them.

“Yet again, the state of Heathrow is a national embarrassment,” declared Theresa Villiers, transport spokeswoman for the opposition Conservative Party.

“It is a matter of national pride which has been dented,” Fitzpatrick acknowledged. “When her majesty opened Terminal 5 . . . many of us believed that Heathrow had indeed turned the corner, and the bad publicity of recent years would turn into positive publicity . . . but clearly that has not been the case.

“I do believe ultimately, and within a short period of time, Terminal 5 will be a matter of great national pride,” the transportation minister added. “We expect British Airways [and the British Airports Authority] to work together to ensure that solutions are found, and that there is as little disruption as possible to passengers.”

Hiccups at major new airport terminal openings are not unusual. Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi International Airport opened in 2006 and immediately had problems with delayed bags and runway ruts; Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur both opened new airports in 1998 that suffered from computer problems and passenger delays; Denver’s new airport, when it began operations in 1995, met with an immediate and catastrophic collapse of its much-touted automated bag-handling system.

Into this rogues’ gallery strides Heathrow, which, as the world’s busiest international airport, always does things bigger and badder than others. From the beginning, Terminal 5 was touted as more than just a new building; as the new headquarters for British Airways flights, it was supposed to be, in airport management’s words, “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to redefine air travel.”

Fashioned with 30,000 square meters of glass and 80,000 tons of steel, the airy facility nearly doubles Heathrow’s passenger space. It is the largest free-standing structure in Europe, with expansive views down to the City (the financial district) on one side and Windsor Castle on another.

Inside are a row of designer boutiques, a Harrods department store and a restaurant created by Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay. More importantly, a state-of-the-art baggage system, with 10 miles of conveyor belts controlled by 140 computers, is designed to process up to 12,000 bags an hour at speeds of up to 30 mph.

“At London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, we’ve created a natural, logical journey that’s so calm, you’ll flow through,” British Airways pledges on its website. “Our aim [is] to replace the queues, the crowds and the stress with space, light and calm.”

The first signs that Thursday would not be light and calm came as early as 4:35 a.m., as staff members snaked fruitlessly through the already-full employee parking lot, then waited in vain for shuttle buses at alternate parking lots.

When the staffers finally arrived in force, passengers and bags were already accumulating, yet there weren’t enough security staffers on hand to speed baggage handlers through to their workstations.

Some of the baggage handlers, unused to working in such a large terminal, miscalculated the amount of time it would take to get luggage from one side to the other. The baggage conveyor belts started backing up.

The upshot was that the first seven flights of the day left Heathrow with no checked baggage aboard, the first step in a cascade of delays and cancellations that had passengers waiting in lines for hours on end, with many forced to sleep at the airport that night when British Airways offered hotel vouchers worth just half the going room rate at Heathrow-area hotels.

Euan Fordyce, a British Airways spokesman, said the problems occurred despite “extensive trials” of the baggage-handling system that included using thousands of volunteers carrying empty bags.

“We hope that we’ll be able to operate progressively more flights as the week goes on,” he said. “It very much depends on how the baggage system reacts to more flights, and more baggage going through it.”

By Monday morning, the lines had disappeared but cancellations continued. Flights to Milan, Newcastle, Manchester, Stockholm, Brussels, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt and Aberdeen all were flagged with the ominous “enquire airline” on the passenger board.

Many arrivals were delayed, but most passengers got their bags in a reasonable amount of time -- though a large number of passengers, forewarned, had limited themselves to carry-ons. “I’m not a stupid idiot: I’m not coming here with a suitcase,” sniffed Hans Kardol, an Amsterdam businessman.

Andy Thomas-Emans, arriving on a flight from Los Angeles, said he waited an hour for his bags because only half his flight’s luggage was on the posted carousel, while the other half had been sent, inexplicably, to another part of the airport.

“It was a disaster,” he said. “The baggage service guy didn’t have a clue where they were.”

With all that, crunch time is yet to come. Thursday marked the rollover of British Airways’ short-haul flights, and a few of its U.S. destinations, to Terminal 5. On April 30, it plans to transition its entire long-haul catalog to the new terminal.

“The logistics of loading and turning around jumbo jets, as opposed to small ones, is much more complicated,” said Jamie Bowden, an aviation analyst and former British Airways manager. The airline, he said, may be considering a delay.

“British Airways, corporately, in terms of their reputation, cannot afford to have another mess like they had this week,” Bowden said. “People I’ve spoken to in the company the last few days, they feel a degree of shame, they feel humiliated, they feel let down by their own senior bosses, and many of them feel the day they had looked forward to for so many years has turned out to be the greatest disappointment of their entire careers.”

kim.murphy@latimes.com