Terminal of teething troubles

By Peter Grant
BBC News, Paris

Check-in was smooth, but security suffered glitches

Heathrow's new Terminal 5 has opened for business to great fanfare, but what fate awaits passengers amid flight delays and lost baggage on one of the first planes out?

For passengers on British Airways flight 306 to Paris, Heathrow's Terminal 5 will be remembered as the place which ate their luggage.

According to the captain, the flight was more than an hour late leaving due to teething troubles in the terminal.

He said these had delayed the bags but, on arrival in Paris, admitted that none of the bags had even been loaded.

Yet it had all started so well.

Passengers arriving on the first morning had found themselves outnumbered by fluorescent-jacketed staff keen to help them.

Check-in was swift and painless, the bags disappeared - ominously as it happens - underground into a complex system.

Unaffordable luxury

Security, however, was a different matter.

It was the same-old belts off, shoes off routine made longer by unexplained glitches which had yet to be sorted out and which lengthened the queues.

Once fully dressed, many passengers went off to the shops.

Here the building does what so many other terminals fail to do - it gives the passenger a panoramic view of the sky

Some of the names are new to airport retail and some are distinctly upmarket, but many of the passengers were soon wandering aimlessly between the stores with that well-known blank "I'm at an airport, get me out of here" stare.

Terminal five may be a world of luxury, but only for those who can afford it.

Panoramic views

But hanging around the shops and cafes isn't the best way to do the building justice. For that you have to go to the sides and ends.

There passengers are confronted with vast walls of glass giving marvellous views over the airport. Huge pillars and struts tower upwards.

Here the building does what so many other terminals fail to do - it gives the passenger a panoramic view of the sky.

One BA staff member said he hadn't known a flight lose all the bags before

It reminds the passenger of the reason he or she is here in the first place and may help them remember that flying was once as romantic as the new terminal aspires to be.

But former romance and memories don't make waiting any easier when a flight is delayed, or when the bags disappear as they did to flight 306.

A bewildered stream of passengers left the aircraft to queue at the British Airways office in Paris to try to register their loss.

One BA staff member said he hadn't known a flight lose all the bags before.

One of the passengers called the incident disgraceful.

Terminal five may be an outstanding building but so is London's St Pancreas station, the Eurostar terminal.

Next time I go to Paris I'll take the train.