Baggage handling seriously bollocksed up at London Heathrow's new terminal....

[marmar]

from BoingBoing:



British Airways loses 15-20,000 bags since Thursday at supremely b0rked Heathrow Terminal 5
Posted by Cory Doctorow, March 29, 2008 11:11 AM | permalink

The much-ballyhooed opening of Heathrow's £4 billion Terminal 5 has been a debacle. British Airways has canceled 208 flights since Thursday, and has "stranded" between 15,000 and 20,000 bags. Area hotels are crammed with stuck BA passengers and are gouging on pricing, prompting BA to lift its stingy (and possibly illegal) £100 limit on hotels for stuck passengers. This is the terminal with the that just cancelled its crackpot fingerprinting procedure -- passengers are fingerprinted at check-in and at boarding.

And lest you think you might try to get there with a change of underwear by going hand-baggage only, think again. BA's baggage-checkers are being serious rules-lawyers about hand-luggage limits, forcing passengers to check hand-bags that are less than an inch oversize, dooming the luggage to the nonfunctional baggage system at T5.

On one of the delayed planes, passengers on flight BA0662 to Larnaca were held on the tarmac for some four hours before leaving at 1205 GMT.

One, Elizabeth Drury, told the BBC the captain said they would be leaving without any luggage.

They had been told this was because some of the bags initially put on the plane had not been screened properly.

"The whole experience has been meltdown," she said.

A group of school pupils on flight BA285 to San Francisco also said they were told by the airline that their bags were not on board and they could choose whether or not to travel. They were bound for a skiing trip.

"It could ruin it because we are scheduled to start skiing tomorrow," said one schoolgirl, Natalie Bakhurst.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/29/british-airways-lose.html

[malaise]

1. People neeed to start suing the shit out of these incompetent

airlines. Apparently they have no clue who pays for our tickets.

[Clear Blue Sky]

2. Sounds like the Denver airport when it opened 10-15 years ago.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. How can they be that incompetent?

Helloooo. It's not rocket science. You tag the baggage and make sure it gets sent to the right plane. It's been happening for decades at airports around the world, even at Heathrow.

(I must admit, though, that Heathrow is particularly unpleasant, dingy, huge, hard to reach, 20 minute walks to your departure gate, a screening before the boarding area and a second screening before the gate area, in case someone in the terminal sold you a bomb, with horrendous lines and a one-bag carry-on limit for departing passengers--that's one bag, including purses, computer cases, and camera cases, although you can put all these things inside a single bag that will hold them all yet be small enough to fit through their test frame. Go figure.)

[kestrel91316]

4. Wow. They must have hired the firm that made such a mess

at DIA........

[MilesColtrane]

5. Reminiscent of the Python lad's prescient song "I'm So Worried".

I'm so worried about what's hapenin' today, in the middle east, you know
And I'm worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow
I'm so worried about the fashions today, I don't think they're good for your feet
And I'm so worried about the shows on TV that sometimes they want to repeat

I'm so worried about what's happenin' today, you know
And I'm worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow
I'm so worried about my hair falling out and the state of the world today
And I'm so worried about bein' so full of doubt about everything, anyway

I'm so worried about modern technology
I'm so worried about all the things that they dump in the sea
I'm so worried about it, worried about it, worried, worried, worried

I'm so worried about everything that can go wrong
I'm so worried about whether people like this song
I'm so worried about this very next verse, it isn't the best that I've got
And I'm so worried about whether I should go on, or whether I should just stop

I'm worried about whether I ought to have stopped
And I'm worried about, it's the sort of thing I ought to know
And I'm worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow

I'm so worried about whether I should have stopped then
I'm so worried that I'm driving everyone 'round the bend
I'm worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow