BA have announced that they are delaying the move of the rest of the long haul BA flights from T4 to T5. (There have only been the short haul and a minority of the long haul so far). This was meant to have taken place by 30th of April, but sanity has prevailed and it will now take place by June 5th.

Let's hope the breathing space allows BA/BAA to actually get T5 reliably working.

It's going to have a knock on effect for those airlines who were going to move into the vacated T4, so all kinds of flights might have new terminal details.

(I put this here, rather than the UK forum because of transit passengers.)

More details at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7342263.stm

quote:

Originally posted by Panda:
BA have announced that they are delaying the move of the rest of the long haul BA flights from T4 to T5. (There have only been the short haul and a minority of the long haul so far). This was meant to have taken place by 30th of April, but sanity has prevailed and it will now take place by June 5th.

Thank you for the update, Panda.

Oh, bother. I was hoping for an easy connection in T5 for myself and my stepmother in May, too, but now it seems that I have the unfortunate business of planning out the transfer from T4 to T5 for my stepmother who will be arriving separately from me. Not to mention they only given us 2 and a 1/4 hours to make that connection to Rome, too. If we experience any delays from our respective flights into Heathrow from Chicago O'Hare--either one of us could be in for a mess. Darn...oh, well.

I asumed that not having to go through T5 at the moment would be good news for anyone but, of course, there will be plenty of people negatively affected by this as well .

There is a 'wonderful' video interview on the BBC site with Willie Walsh, the boss of BA, conceding that things didn't go well on the first day. The first day!!

quote:

Originally posted by Panda:
I asumed that not having to go through T5 at the moment would be good news for anyone but, of course, there will be plenty of people negatively affected by this as well .

There is a 'wonderful' video interview on the BBC site with Willie Walsh, the boss of BA, conceding that things didn't go well on the first day. The first day!!

Ah yes, I've seen that one . As well as the rest of the news and videos that BBC has on their website regarding the present problems at T5.

I've been attempting to keep updated on their progress since the opening, so you're post was most appreciated. That solved the issue of uncertainty regarding where we would be arriving; however, now I hope that American Airlines has all their problems sorted out by the second week of May, too. Thanks, Panda.

I'm scheduled to come through there June 8, hope it doesn't turn into Chaos again.

quote:

Originally posted by CShock:
...it seems that I have the unfortunate business of planning out the transfer from T4 to T5 for my stepmother who will be arriving separately from me.

Both my American Airlines flight itinerary and the BAA Heathrow website is still showing my May 13, British Airways code share from Chicago as arriving at T5, so I'll have to keep an eye out for any upcoming changes.

Cindy, the British Airways site appears to be updated here saying the flight from Chicago (if yours is operated by BA) will use T4 until further notice, and here that there will be a phased move sometime in June.

Thanks for the heads up, Andrew. Good thing I printed off the connection instructions and maps of Terminal 4 for myself and my stepmother this morning; I had a feeling that we were going to need them. Oh well, so much for less stress!

There is a lot to read, but here is a link to the Rights of Air Passengers in Europe. If you are flying within Europe (not TO Europe from America), there are rules regarding flight cancellations and what is owed to passengers.

Rights of Air Passengers in Europe

Hope this is helpful.
Cameron

We were lucky. We traveled from CDG Paris through to Heathrow Terminal 5 with British Air on April 10th. It all went very smoothly but we only had carry ons.

Sandy

PS We then flew to Vancouver from T5.

Sandy

quote:

Originally posted by Sandy from Vancouver Island:
We were lucky. We traveled from CDG Paris through to Heathrow Terminal 5 with British Air on April 10th. It all went very smoothly but we only had carry ons.

Sandy

That's favorable news. At least they're heading in the right direction.

Well, the BA operations director and director of 'customer services' (pardon me whilst I at the thought that there was someone with that title) have fallen on their swords. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7348401.stm


I picked up my daughter from a flight back from the US today to T5 - landed early, baggage off efficiently and completely and all through in a very reasonable time. (They had 7 bags go astray on the way out just over a week ago). So, coming together.

Lifts still not fully working - the ones we did catch had temporary operators in them (which floor, Madam?) which made me feel like we were having a flashback and were going to stop at Ladies Lingerie and Household Items.

Still building work apparent and (not that this will affect many people reading this) the signage into the airport and then driving around the road system to/from T5 is awful - too few signs , too small, too late (OK, we did take a couple of diversions around a building site and cargo area when I was trying to avoid being dumped onto the motorway)and I am a local with a geographical sense of the place - I saw other very confused drivers taking last minute decisions.

quote:

Originally posted by Panda:
Well, the BA operations director and director of 'customer services' (pardon me whilst I at the thought that there was someone with that title) have fallen on their swords. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7348401.stm

Well put.

Bad news for everyone, I suppose, but the rest of it should fall into place eventually. The statement that bothered me the most in the article was about the travel insurance from "Direct Line" and "Tesco." I've never heard of them, but if you purchased a policy from them after T5 opened, and they lose your luggage at Heathrow, you're basically screwed?! I don't think their going to get very many customer recommendations that way.

The insurance thing is a bit odd, isn't it ?- Direct Line and Tesco are two of the biggest domestic/car/travel insurance companies in the UK (we've got our car and house with one and annual travel with the other) and where they go others tend to follow. Be interesting to see how long they have that condition in place...

We will be going through T5 in mid-July on our way back to the US. I'm expecting they will have most of the kinks out by then...I hope.

We will be connecting in T5 at the end of next week on our way to Paris from SFO.

Will let you know how we we did.

We are here in Paris - tired and with a headache after our long flight SFO-LHR-CDG but very excited to start our three months here.

Any way we connected in T5 yesterday, arrived in T5 and departed in T5 with a three-hour lay-over. No problems at all, actually too much time in T5.

Our two check-in luggage arrived with us in CDG, yes!! There were a lot of staff around plus signs to tell you where to go. T5 is big with lots of shopping.

Glad to know it went well - it does seem as if things are settling down at T5. Hope the rest of your trip goes as well!

Following up on some earlier posts about some UK insurance companies refusing coverage for T5 - they backtracked on that very quickly (less than a week, I think) - might have something to do with the pound falling against the euro and holiday bookings from the UK to the Eurozone being rather slow (with consequent travel insurance business also sluggish)