After the airport chaos, heads must roll at BA
IT IS said that a company should not be judged by its day-to-day activities, but by how it deals with problems. My wife Gillian and I realised this over the Bank Holiday weekend when we arrived at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 to fly to Rome, where we were due to start a much-anticipated cruise. There needs to be a full inquiry, not only into the catastrophic IT failure, but also the collapse of British Airways’s management, which left passengers and staff confused, helpless and distressed. Learning lessons and fines are not enough — high-level heads must roll. During the day we spent at the airport, we didn’t see any staff handing out bottles of water. We were called to a departure gate, where staff made hourly announcements that they were trying their best to find out what was happening, but had no information from higher up. This was despite news appearing on the internet that flights were being cancelled. Eventually, an announcement was made that passengers booked on flights due to depart before 4.30pm would have to leave the airport, but ‘in order to avoid overcrowding’, they would have to do so in parties of five or family groups. After howls of disbelief, this was modified to groups of 50. Was there really only one usable exit? When inquiries were made about accommodation, we were told BA was not doing anything and we should just go home. We were refused access to our luggage. This meant we could not make bookings with other airlines. At this point, many of the passengers became upset and suddenly two heavily armed police appeared. When things go wrong in any organisation, it is often the case that employees step up to the plate and lead by example, but on Saturday no heroes or heroines appeared. Elderly people in wheelchairs were stuck in the middle of the dense crowd trying to exit, but there were no staff to assist them. Young mothers in tears with distressed children were ignored unless they were helped by fellow passengers. Our holiday has been ruined, as there seems little likelihood of being able to catch up with the ship. And we can’t book another trip, as we don’t have our luggage. We were told it would be delivered to our home ‘in a few days’ and were warned not to go to Heathrow to try to reclaim our bags. I tried unsuccessfully to use the online reporting system and eventually managed to get through to someone on the phone — who told me our cases have been sent to Rome. BA told us this had happened because ‘as the luggage had been scanned, it had to leave the country’.
JOHN A. WARD, Farnham, Surrey.