I have just arrived home (4am) from what should have been a ‘day to remember’. Well it is a day to remember but for all the wrong reasons…

I set out to catch my flight from * (I leave out the name for reasons that will become apparent below) to Heathrow after a very successful week. Arriving at *airport I was delighted to see that the queue for check-in was non-existent. The delight lasted but a nano-second before I realised that something must be very wrong. Sure enough, my flight was delayed for over two hours. The incoming flight was delayed due to baggage handling at the new Heathrow Terminal 5. It was only then I discovered that my return flight would be landing at the newly opened Terminal 5.

I will confess that I had missed this auspicious date when booking my return flight. Sadly, BA did not flag this up on the online booking system. As an experienced mediator of disputes arising out of large projects, had I known, I would certainly have chosen a different day/airline/airport!

Once my bags were checked in, I was offered a glass of champagne by a very chirpy BA employee, to celebrate the auspicious day! I smiled and said that under the circumstances he might just ‘give me the bottle’! I had an emerging sense of foreboding but at that moment it hadn’t quite overwhelmed my general feeling of serenity.

Two hours and a bit later the flight left.

Being a curious type and always finding that people at the sharp end generally have a better idea of what is going on than the ‘official version’, I found an opportunity to chat to the crew. And this is what they said:

“They have been running trial runs on the baggage handling for months. Every time they did, the ground staff said ‘it doesn’t work’. To which the reply was ‘yes it does! We have learned some lessons and it will all be OK.’ So the lessons were learned and they ran it again and the ground staff said “it doesn’t work!” To which they replied - you’ve guessed it - “Of course it works…”

The crew also told me that they had known about the problems very early in the day. On the morning flight they had left Heathrow with no baggage but had not been allowed to tell the passengers. They felt awful about that.

They were extremely despondent about the lack of involvement and the disregard for their knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work and most especially because they were the ones now dealing with the understandable frustration of the passengers effected when it could all have been avoided.

Then there was a very real personal difficulty for me. The delay meant that I would arrive with very little time to spare to get the last Heathrow Express and failing that the last tube back to central London. I was quite encouraged when the pilot managed to gain 15 minutes on the estimated time of arrival and I did think that I might just make it before being stranded.

The plan landed at 10.45pm. We then spent 10 minutes waiting for a gate. Then we waited for the ‘aircraft guidance system’ to be switched on. Apparently there is no ‘join’ between ATC and the gate control. However, once ‘guided in’ we then waited another 10 minutes for the pier to be attached. Please don’t apply logic at this point - you will be disappointed if not confused! If in the scheme of things 10 minutes here and there seems relatively short, it might help to know that there were no other planes moving at this point. We might have reasonably enjoyed the full attention of every member of the ground crew and none would have suffered, no safety risk presented.

Snagging? (Technical construction term for rubbish finishing and things that don’t yet work.) Someone has dropped several stitches and they are running ladders! (Technical knitting terms.) I will confess to making the following comment more than once: “This could only have been designed by a bloke or blokes! No woman would ever get ‘baggage handling’ messed up! It just doesn’t compute!” All the ‘blokes’ agreed with me!

We waited for the shuttle. Exactly the same model and, funnily enough, with the same announcement (Please hold on!) as the one at Leonardo da Vinci, Rome. One ’station’ and that is 50% of the system was closed. T5 Shuttle - Station Closed

The first train left jam-packed and so we had to wait for the train to do a round trip. By this time any hope of public transport back to London was a ‘vision of hope and loveliness’.

The shuttle arrived. Empty. One passenger declared in astonishment “Oh my God! The wrong doors have opened! They can’t even get that right!” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that this ‘James Bond’ apparatus couldn’t tell that there were no departing passengers on the train to get off first before allowing those arriving to board!

I switched on my BlackBerry. Message from friend: “Take a chill-pill coming through arrivals! BA not letting cameras near arrivals hall. But stories of 3hr waits for bags, or people being held for a couple of hours on planes. Also stories of fights at passport control and security as people tried to force their way through.”

I had my camera around my neck, switched on and ready. I don’t look like a card carrying member of the National Union of Journalists, but as it happens, I am. No one took any notice of me as I snapped merrily (without flash) during the journey through the arrivals hall to the baggage reclaim area.

We waited.

And waited.

And then one of our number came along the line waving a yellow form accompanied by information that the bags could be anything up to 5 hours before they came through and that we might choose to fill in this form and concede to the bags being sent on.

At this point two students, both from Athens studying in England, one at the LSE, exclaimed ‘this is normal in Greece but not in England’. They simply couldn’t believe it. The younger one (studying animation) had already spent £200 on changing flights to cope with the delays and would still be making the choice of continuing on her journey to Portugal, from Stanstead, with no luggage or waiting for her luggage and missing yet another flight with no hope of a refund. She was distraught. I suggested that one day she might feel like turning this into a cartoon film and make lots of money and in the meantime she should send her bills to BA for the changes. £200 is a great deal to a student. Neither, of course, could reach anywhere by public transport at that hour and a taxi to London is £80, as I discovered later.

Meanwhile back to the yellow form. Customs. HMCE must first be assured that we are not sneaking in anything we ought to be paying tax on. This is most important. Then - and only after HMCE are satisfied - an address to send the errant suitcase. Of course the suitcase is to blame! Credit where credit due: it was quite straight forward to complete.

Some chose to wait and others, like me, knew that the estimate of 5 hours was really designed to put us off waiting rather than give us a real eta for the bags. In choosing the latter we were electing to stand in a very long queue for the customer service desk. This was manned by two BA staff. There were others wafting around with clip boards but they didn’t stay in one place for too long - scared stiff of being asked a question, perhaps!BA Customer Service Desk - 1.00am 28 March 2008

I have to say this: what on earth possessed British Airways to conceive a staffing plan for two people to man the customer service desk at (now 1am) in the face of a cocktail of no public transport, cancelled flights, missed transfers, stranded youngsters, lone female travellers? And to do so after hours of prior knowledge and at an hour which posed real problems in freezing cold weather? The queue got so long that the Police arrived to ensure we were all behaving properly. We were. Remarkable temperance considering a total lack of information and most probably because the two brave souls attending to us were very calm, empathetic, helpful, caring and efficient. Move over Mr Gareth Kirkwood, there is better leadership in the lower ranks!

And to make my point, an excerpt from his brief statement: “We always knew the first day would represent a unique challenge because of the size and complexity of the move into Terminal 5,” said the British Airways director of operations, Gareth Kirkwood. “We are working extremely hard on solutions to these short-term difficulties.”

If you knew, Mr Kirkwood, then why were there only two people dealing with the reality of that unique challenge? And where were you? Why weren’t you at the sharp end handing out water? Or better still Hot Chocolate! And where were your senior team and colleagues? I hope not ’snug in bed’ or talking strategy about how you would handle the press in the morning. Mmmm.

2.00am: An announcement: The baggage carousels were now shut off and no more bags would be delivered. No more? More means ‘in addition to’. Yes? I can only imagine they meant in addition to the ones that were still going around after 5 hours because others before us had given up and had gone on their way.

And so we surrendered, rather gracefully I think, to the inevitable by filling out forms and finally making our way to get taxis. You might think that we were nearly ‘home’. Not so.

Firstly, I must mention that I saw members of the press being man-handled by security off the premises! In Great Britain!

The taxi queue: two ‘taxi management consultants’ decked out in brand new hi-viz vests. Long queue - no taxis. Ergo, no management. Apparently, taxi drivers were not particularly enticed by the promise of very substantial fares. Cheltenham (£250), Southampton, Central London (£80)… Nor did our consultants hit upon the idea of asking people where they needed to go and trying to ‘manage’ some shared rides. 4c and windy. Buses floating by marked ‘not in service’, drivers slowing to gawp. No hotel shuttles. It was pitiful, pathetic and for the first time in my life I was truly ashamed to be British.

Taxi Queue

British Airways: I think you had one shot at this. It may not be all your responsibility but it is your name, brand and trusworthiness that is on the line and what happened today was spectacularly embarrassing. Forgiveness will be a long time coming especially from the Greek students! I would not wish to be in your shoes for any money!

And even more depressing is that it all looks old fashioned already. Stunning from the outside - rather like a cowshed on fire - well perhaps that is my particular take at the moment. Stunningly boring on the inside - well the arrivals bit anyway. It is the only part I can speak of and I may never see the 120 designer shops. And I imagine there will be some stunning disputes to resolve not least the disenfranchisement of your staff.

Do you think it might have been a good idea to have consulted a Feng Shui expert! I hear they are quite good. Especially about auspicious dates!

Anyway, I have taken a quick look in my crystal ball and things look pretty choppy; all swirling mists and fog and what looks like a big bag of ‘nasty brown stuff’ being passed around. Then there is something that looks like people ‘ripping’ something out: miles of it - can’t quite see what happens next… No hang on… lots of chaps sitting around tables with piles and piles of folders. How odd!