British Airways which is probably the company I know best as a customer after my various broadband providers recently went through a period of pretty savage attacks in the UK media for their serious operational problems opening Terminal 5 at Heathrow.
Some of this was deserved as for several years the answer to all service issues on the ground at Heathrow was a version of "Don’t worry Terminal 5 will solve everything." Of course it did not. The problems were also compounded by the decision to make a big bang rather than phased transfer of flight operations to the new terminal.
That said I have been flying in and out of Terminal 5 now for weeks and the experience is a vast improvement. The terminal itself is architecturally compelling clearly marked and reasonably efficient. Undoubtedly BA deserved a measure of drubbing in the local print media for building up expectations for Terminal 5 — I have been flying long enough to remember pretty ghastly first weeks at new airports from Denver to Hong Kong . However I can’t help feeling that there was a perverse pleasure or schadenfreude enjoyed in stretching BA on the rack for its short-comings much as the veneer of true sympathy always seemed spread quite thinly when Tim Henman would predictably exit Wimbledon before the Semis.
There are many good things in the UK worthy of praise – it is time to celebrate them.
T5 had its problems what large scale project doesn’t? The fundamental failings are clear for all to see and for the most part they have been resolved. That said what is the British obcession with kicking people when they’re down? This was (in its day) the largest construction project in Europe and history will show it as a triumphant 2 fingers to the Brussels brigade who say: “The british can’t do anything on a large scale”….