Two British Airways directors sacked over the Terminal 5 fiasco... but Willie Walsh stays

At the height of the chaos at Heathrow's newlyopened Terminal 5, British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh stepped in front of the cameras and declared: "The buck stops with me."

But yesterday it was not Mr Walsh who paid for the fiasco with his job.

Proving the truth of the business adage "in times of trouble, deputy heads will roll", two of his senior executives instead left the airline.

In a terse statement, BA announced that operations director Gareth Kirkwood and customer services director David Noyes "will be leaving the company".

The announcement came just days after Mr Walsh accepted responsibility for Terminal 5's teething problems and said there was "little value or merit in trying to apportion blame".

Neither Mr Kirkwood, who turned 45 yesterday, nor Mr Noyes, also 45, were at work yesterday. Between them they have worked for British Airways for 45 years.

Prior to the terminal's opening on March 27, Mr Walsh repeatedly boasted of how both BA and the building were ready.

A week before the unveiling, he even sent a newsletter to BA gold card holders crowing that the new terminal will be "so calm, you'll just float through".

In the event, it was a disaster.

Passengers were forced to queue for hours as they waited for flights which were subsequently cancelled. Thousands of bags went missing.

As well as being a public relations catastrophe for the company, the problems are estimated to have cost it £16million.

It was not until last week that BA was able to operate a full domestic and short-haul service from the new terminal.

Mr Noyes and Mr Kirkwood are believed to have become the focus for their boss's wrath after they painted too rosy a picture of the terminal.

Before the launch, Mr Noyes boasted that passengers lining up at check in would never have more than one person queuing in front of them.

However, as the problems started to emerge, he modified his position to claim there would need to be "a bedding down period".

And at another highly-charged press conference, British Airways staff were forced to bundle Mr Kirkwood, a father of two, out of the room when he refused to answer angry journalists' questions.

Mr Kirkwood was also one of ten current or former BA employees named last August by the US Department of Justice in connection with price fixing of fuel surcharges.

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British Airways was fined £121.5million by the UK's Office of Fair Trading over the price fixing and was also fined about £150million by the Department of Justice.

The fiasco at Terminal 5 has been blamed on a catalogue of problems including poor training, computer shutdowns and management overconfidence.

Speaking last week, Mr Walsh said: "I accept responsibility for the issues we encountered, particularly on the first day."

He added: "There is little value or merit in trying to apportion blame. It is clear that we got things wrong and we acknowledge that, and there were mistakes on BAA's part and they acknowledge that."

Asked if he was aware of staff concerns about the move he said: "I would not have agreed to the move if I was not confident it would be a success."

Adding to BA's embarrassment, the airline yesterday revealed that it is again postponing the date on which its long-haul flights will use Terminal 5.

The long-haul transfer date was previously set at April 30.

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It was then delayed to June. Yesterday Mr Walsh conceded it is unlikely to happen until October.

It has also emerged that some insurers will not issue new policies to holidaymakers planning on travelling through Terminal 5.

So many bags have gone missing in the new terminal that some insurance companies complain that the risk of luggage going missing is too great.

They have been telling travellers they must travel through the new terminal at their own risk.