BA delays switching Mideast services to T5

SHAMBOLIC OPENING: Thousands of passengers have lost luggage and hundreds of flights have been delayed or cancelled since T5, pictured, opened. (Getty Images)

British Airways (BA) has delayed moving its long-haul flights to the new Terminal 5 (T5) at London's Heathrow airport following the terminal's shambolic opening last month.

BA has planned to switch all its long-haul flights, including those to and from the Middle East, to T5 on April 30, but on Friday BA and airport operator BAA said the move had been pushed back until June, without giving a specific date. T5 is exclusively for the use of BA.

"The airline's travellers from the Gulf will get their first taste of Terminal 5 in June 2008 - when phase two of the opening takes place with flights transferring from Terminal 4," BA and BAA said in a joint statement quoted by UAE daily Gulf News.

BA planned to switch a total of 60 arrivals and 60 departures per day to T5 at the end of this month. BA operates 55 weekly services from the Gulf to Heathrow.

The delay could hit passengers from the region transferring from short-haul to long-haul flights at Heathrow as BA's summer schedules assumed passengers would be flying into and out of T5.

This means journey times will be increased, in some cases substantially, because passengers will have to get from T5 to Terminal 4 to catch long-haul flights.

The delay will also have a knock-on effect on airlines scheduled to move to Terminal 4 in place of BA, including BMI, Air France-KLM, Delta and Continental Airlines.

Airlines were to begin moving to Terminal 4 at the beginning of next year. BAA said it did not know how long the switch would be delayed.

The much-heralded 4.3 billion-British pound ($8.41 billion) T5 opened for business on March 27, but a series of problems, including the failure of the baggage system, meant thousands of passengers lost their luggage and hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled.

It took more than a week before BA was able to operate its full short-haul schedule from T5 and cost the airline at least 16 million pounds so far.

"While a normal flight schedule has been operated at Terminal 5 since Tuesday, we want to ensure that customers can be confident of high service standards when additional flights are introduced," BA and BAA said in a joint statement.

"We will work together to iron out any remaining problems, including the baggage system and its operation, and develop a robust timescale for phasing the move of Terminal 4 services into Terminal 5."

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