Chaotic scenes at new Heathrow terminal

Bahrain News.Net
Thursday 27th March, 2008

The new Terminal 5 building at England's Heathrow Airport has opened in chaos, with its new baggage handling system suspended and dozens of flights cancelled.

The terminal, which cost 4.3 billion pounds, was meant to smooth the passage of passengers travelling through the world's busiest international airport.

Technical problems caused the state-of-the-art baggage system to break down and at least 33 short-haul flights were cancelled.

Furious passengers suffered many hours of delays because of the baggage backlog and were told they would only be able to take hand luggage onboard.

British Airways, which controls Terminal 5, blamed the disruption on teething problems.

Baggage handling was only one of a series of problems facing passengers; others included car parking troubles, staff security screening and general confusion over the unfamiliar layout.

Tight security was in place in expectation of demonstrations by environmental protesters against the expansion of the airport.

But only a couple of hundred eco-demonstrators appeared in the main entrance wearing t-shirts with the slogan: Stop Airport Expansion.

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