...After 10 days of lost bags, canceled flights at Terminal 5

The phrase “public relations disaster” was employed repeatedly by the media last week to describe the first week and a half of operations at London Heathrow’s huge new Terminal 5, the home base for British Airways; but BA is now telling customers it expects to operate normal flight schedules at T5 starting this week, after hundreds of cancellations during the terminal’s shakedown period. The other big headache for passengers flying out of T5 has been lost bags – more than 20,000 by some estimates. BA has added a T5 Update section to its web home page (www.britishairways.com), and in that section it offers passengers a link to its baggage tracking system where they can register details of their missing luggage. “As a result of the disruption to flights from Terminal 5, some customers’ bags will unfortunately be delayed,” the airline said. It noted that because of a “disruption” to the T5 baggage system on March 27, “it may take us several days to process baggage, as we have to process each bag manually.”