Brand new T5 but the same old troubles

British Airways was forced to cancel 20 flights and thousands of passengers had to wait for up to three hours for their luggage in the £4.3billion terminal. Some left the airport without it ever turning up.

BA started cancelling short-haul flights to Scotland and mainland Europe shortly after midday, after three flights took off without any luggage.

David Haslam, 28, an Army officer from Camberley, Surrey, had been waiting for more than three-and-a-half hours to pick up relatives from the arrivals lounge.

He said: "My mother-in-law had to abandon her luggage in the end because she had to get a connecting flight. There is still no sign of my father-in-law."

BA - which had boasted that T5 was the solution to "Heathrow hell" - said the fiasco was caused by a shortage of baggage handlers. Some failed to get into the car park, others were not security screened in time and some of those who did turn up did not know how to work the computer system.

Planes were stuck on the runway because incoming baggage had not been unloaded.

Hundreds of passengers whose flights were cancelled faced a wait of more than an hour for information or to rebook later flights. They formed a queue snaking across the concourse.

Out of the 26 desks available to deal with passenger information, 11 were closed. A BA spokeswoman said this was because staff were needed in Terminals 1 and 4.

James Winter, a 29-year-old project manager from Willesden said: "I was supposed to be flying to Berlin this afternoon but it was cancelled. I have spent more than half an hour queuing for information and I'm still waiting.

"You would think they would be able to get this right especially because it is the first day. Hopefully I will get on to a later flight but I still don't know."

Later, a computer failure halted several baggage belts in the fast-drop sections of the terminal.

A BA spokeswoman said: "We have had a few minor problems in our first day of operation in T5. It is not unexpected following one of the most complex and largest airport moves in history.

"These teething problems have included car parking provision for staff, delays in staff security screening and staff familiarisation with the terminal."

The spokeswoman added: "We have also had some baggage performance issues. These also are being resolved.

The average customer has given us a very positive reaction to T5 which we know will be a resounding success."

BA had boasted that T5's baggage handling system was one of the most advanced in the world. When bags are dropped off, a robotic hoist picks them up and "injects" them onto the conveyer belt system where they are supposed to travel at up to 30mph, reaching any gate in 15 minutes. A wi-fi network allows items to be traced via their barcodes anywhere in the terminal.

The facility, which was 20 years in the making, had been praised as "the best ever" as the first plane, a flight from Hong Kong, landed eight minutes early at 4.42am, with pilot Lynn Barton making a "textbook touchdown".

Clare Hammond, 44, a banker with HSBC who was allowed to be the first passenger to alight at T5 because she is a BA frequent flier, said: "It was a fabulous trip and my best ever flight."

BA said baggage handling on the flight, which was greeted by chief executive Willie Walsh, had "worked perfectly", taking just 14 minutes. Within an hour it had all gone wrong as passengers experienced "Heathrow hell" as normal.

Denise and Mike Salinger, who were on the second flight, said: "We had to wait an hour for our bags. For us it has been a bit of a damp squib because of having to wait so long."

Jason Chiswell, a vice president of AEG Milwaukee, said: "I arrived on a Stuttgart flight and waited an hour and 50 minutes for my bags. The whole area in there consists of people waiting for their bags. One of the BA guys told me the computer system had crashed." A BA insider blamed airport operator BAA for the staff shortage, saying: "BAA did not have enough people conducting staff searches this morning and we could not get our people through quick enough."