British Airways has revealed the full extent of
theIT problems that marred Terminal 5's openingon 27 March this year.
Written evidence submitted to the Transport Select Committee
shows that a myriad of problems struck during the terminal's first
few days, and these were exacerbated by the way in which BA's IT
staff handled the problems.
Terminal 5 is one of the most technologically advanced airport
terminals in the world, but MPs described its opening as a
"national humiliation". During the first five days, BA misplaced
more than 23,000 bags, cancelled 500 flights and made losses of
£16m.
The Transport Select Committee called in Willie Walsh, BA's
chief executive, Colin Matthews, airport-owner BAA's chief
executive, and Nigel Rudd, a non-executive chairman of the board,
to
face some tough questions earlier this month.
Willie Walsh revealed that IT problems and a lack of testing
played a large part in the trouble. But he said the airline could
have coped if IT had been the only issue.
He reeled off a list of failures. Staff had not been trained
properly, they were unable to park when their car parks became too
full on the day of opening, staff security searches were delayed,
and construction work on parts of the building was not finished
when the airport opened. Out of 275 lifts, 28 were not working - 17
are still broken, with 11 still to be fixed by the end of May.
"It was a combination of factors," Walsh said. "We could have
coped with a couple of the problems. But all of the problems
hitting us led to a cascade."
British Airways' written evidence showed how many IT problems
staff had to contend with. To begin with, loading staff could not
sign on to the baggage-reconciliation system. They had to reconcile
bags manually, causing flight delays. Problems with the wireless
Lan at some check-in stands meant that staff could not enter
information on bags into the system using their handheld
devices.
During testing on the baggage system, technicians installed
software filters in the baggage system. Their job was to prevent
specimen messages generated by the baggage system during the tests
being delivered to the "live" systems elsewhere in Heathrow. But
they were accidently left in place after the terminal opened.
As a result, the Terminal 5 system did not receive information
about bags transferring to British Airways from other airlines. The
unrecognised bags were automatically sent for manual sorting in the
terminal's storage facility.
An "incorrect configuration" stopped the feed of data from the
baggage-handling system to the baggage reconciliation system. On
Saturday 5 April - a week and a half after opening - the
reconciliation system failed for the whole day. Bags missed their
flights because the faulty system told staff that they had not been
security screened.
There were errors in the transmission of BA flight data between
BAA and communications and IT contractor SITA. As a result, the
system did not recognise a proportion of the bags, which were held
within the T5 baggage system for manual processing. A lack of
server capacity at the terminal excacerbated the problems, Walsh
told the inquiry.
As these errors built up, more bags went unrecognised by the
system, missed their flights, or had to re-booked on new flights.
The baggage-handling system froze after becoming unable to cope
with the number of messages generated by re-booking flights,
forcing managers to switch off the automated re-booking system.
By 5pm on the first day of opening, British Airways could no
longer accept checked baggage. It told passengers in the departure
lounge they would be leaving without their luggage. Anyone who had
not yet checked in could choose between travelling without baggage
or re-booking their flight. Staff took unrecognised bags out of the
system and sorted them manually - this happened every day until 31
March, during which time a total of 23,205 bags had to be manually
sorted.
Walsh said BA's IT staff finally removed the software filters on
31 March, four days after opening. This was not the only IT problem
to continue for a few more days. The airline was forced to cancel
hundreds of flights as it struggled to clear the baggage backlog
and work out why the systems were failing.
"I believed at the time of the opening that the move would be
successful," Walsh told MPs. "I do regret it, but I have not
actually met anyone who was able to predict the particular problems
we would encounter."
BA puts the failure to spot the IT issues down to inadequate
system testing, caused by delays to BAA's construction work.
Construction work was scheduled to finish on 17 September last
year. The delays meant BA IT staff could not start testing until 31
October. Several trials had to be cancelled, and BA had to reduce
the scope of system trials because testing staff were unable to
access the entire Terminal 5 site.
BAA was less keen to attribute blame, or explain in detail what
went wrong. Matthews told MPs that he had not made the time
available to investigate the problems surrounding Terminal 5's
opening because he had spent his time sorting them out. His answers
did not go down well with the MPs, who accused him of
complacency.
"I made a very specific decision that, rather than take the time
for operations and technical experts to brief me on this
appearance, I concluded that my responsibility was to fix issues
with passengers," he said.
Most of Terminal 5's problems have now been ironed out, and BA
staff are working to resolve those that still exist. BA has
postponed the transfer of long-haul flights from Terminal 4.
Originally planned for 30 April, the move now will not happen until
at least early June.
"Clearly our reputation has been damaged, but I am satisfied
that we understand around 95% of the issues that led to our
problems," Walsh said. "We are now working very hard to demonstrate
that Terminal 5 is and can be a fantastic success."