WW gave evidence to the select commitee today alongside feedback from BAA.
On balance he performed well. Very direct and gave the impression of batting straight.
One piece of evidence warrants some interest. He said that the losses as a result of the T5 problems were not as great as those that would have been experienced compared to a delay. He said that it wasn't an option to simply delay for a week ro two - or month or two but would have had to have been a season's delay ie a delay until October. So in other words - on balance BA profited by not delaying.
Oddly no one probed the losses which WW set at £17m. A simple question would have discovered that this didn't include the 7.8% customer downturn since T5 opening and has clearly not been factored into the loss.
And yet they've delayed half the move? This is very puzzling. What losses would they have experienced by delaying the move? Payments to BAA - which they now don't have to make because of non-performance?
The very fact that this is mentioned suggests they did seriously consider delaying - but decided against it on cost grounds. I.e. sacrificed the long-term good for short-term gain.
I took a flight from T5 last Friday (2nd May) and found the queues pretty horrendous (30 minute wait to get through security)
It entirely depends on how many channels are open. My first time through T5 security (at about 8pm on the first Saturday when most flights were cancelled) took about 15 minutes since there were only two open and lots of passengers who couldn't understand the 3-person tray concept.
I went back through a considerably busier T5 on Friday 25th about 7pm and since most of the channels were open, got through in about 3 minutes which includes shoe removing.
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I had an interesting first experience with T5 today:
I arrived from my DUS flight at T5 and am connecting to the BA11 to SIN (fromT4). However, I though I'd check out the new FIRST lounge in T5 as I have plenty of time.
Instead of going to flight connections for T1/T2/T3/T4 I headed to the T5 flight connections - expecting to be turned back with my SIN BP.
Instead, there was not a single staff member manning the T5 flight connections centre so I just walked through and was airside in T5.
So far so good and easy. The tricky bit now came after checking out the FIRST lounge (very nice by the way!).
How to get out of T5 and back to T4 where I belong .... actually quite tricky as most of the regulars here found out on day one. I had to be escorted out of the building back to the T1-T4 flight connections. Took about half an hour as the BA information staff kept saying that they cannot do anything and that it's a BAA thing. I kept being told "You shouldn't be here and how did you get here?". My answer was always: "But I am here and it was easy - I just walked here".
Finally they found a BAA guy to open some doors for me after we briefly got stuck in an elevator ... this was followed by a 30 minute drive from T5 to T4 in the bus ... accident at one of the tunnel exits. With amazement I discovered that the tunnels only have one lane in each direction, causing huge traffic jams if a vehicle breaks down or has an accident ...
All in all, I would say it is safe to assume that they have some security issues to be resolved if I can simply walk into T5 airside without showing anyone my BP after getting off an arrival from Europe.
Well anyway, now in T4 F lounge waiting to get into 64K to SIN !
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And yet they've delayed half the move? This is very puzzling. What losses would they have experienced by delaying the move? Payments to BAA - which they now don't have to make because of non-performance?
The very fact that this is mentioned suggests they did seriously consider delaying - but decided against it on cost grounds. I.e. sacrificed the long-term good for short-term gain.
The commercial costs of delaying the flights that did move until say October earliest - is what WW said. WW also I think answered well the questions about being responsible. In essence he said - my words not his - it's my job to fire BA people and the board to fire me which is of course correct.
In his evidence WW said that they considered delaying weekly from 17th September 2007 until the week before opening. However, witth this phase it was never an option to delay for just a week or two (he said) but whether they delayed for the whole season or ploughed on. He said the main sin was one of not testing rigorously enough. The other rather illuminating admission was that the baggage system failure was due to the server not being able to cope with the traffic, this being mostly error messaging as I understand it. It seemed odd that one of the cheapest compionenents ie the server was specced too small. It was also interesting that the relationship with end suppliers was of course "arms length" becasue all of the suppliers to T5 were supplying BAA and not BA. So whilst BA might have had certain reservations with respect to software design they could only suggest not mandate as they were not the customer.
The committee - noticeably lighter without Dunwoody - gave me the impression that they were more interested in gunning for BAA than BA, and what they haven't yet seemed to realsie is that whilst BAA might want to keep Gatwick, their parent company would be delighted to be forced to sell it to get some cash. I think the political game plan is to trash BAA for T5 and punish them by taking Gatwick thus looking as though they are decisive and consumer-sided. In the end they will therefore succeed in rewarding the owenrs of BAA for this poor performance.
It entirely depends on how many channels are open. My first time through T5 security (at about 8pm on the first Saturday when most flights were cancelled) took about 15 minutes since there were only two open and lots of passengers who couldn't understand the 3-person tray concept.
I went back through a considerably busier T5 on Friday 25th about 7pm and since most of the channels were open, got through in about 3 minutes which includes shoe removing.
On my visit I felt the staff did not understand the 3 tray concept. The slowness of the security staff was horrendous - one was more interested in gossiping rather than doing their job. Good to see BAA dog can't be taught new tricks!
I would love to know, where are the two directors that were sacked ?? while they both had a helping hand in the T5 disaster, they most problerly have been handed a huge payout and no doubt sitting in their big gardens chilling enjoying the hot weather, leaving the likes of everyday people to clear up the mess. These men should have been made to stay and face the music, but instead they have been pushed out through the back door and enjoying their lavish life styles while we suffer when we go through T5 which was paid through good tax payers money.
no doubt these guys will land another high profile job, WW should kicked their A*** a long time ago!!
I would love to know, where are the two directors that were sacked ?? while they both had a helping hand in the T5 disaster, they most problerly have been handed a huge payout and no doubt sitting in their big gardens chilling enjoying the hot weather, leaving the likes of everyday people to clear up the mess. These men should have been made to stay and face the music, but instead they have been pushed out through the back door and enjoying their lavish life styles while we suffer when we go through T5 which was paid through good tax payers money.
no doubt these guys will land another high profile job, WW should kicked their A*** a long time ago!!
David Noyes and Gareth Kirkwood were sacked because they failed to prepare BA for the move to T5. They are unlikely to ever get high profile jobs ever again because of the high profile mess they made.
I don't think that you can say people suffer when they travel through T5. The terminal is performing better than T1 and T4 punctuality wise. The lounges are some of the best in the world.
Please don't give us the taxpayer rubbish. Terminal 5 was built with private money and operated by a private company.
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Had my first T5hit experiences now....
They must have been on crack when they designed it. How many times do you have to go up and down?
Madness...
What a waste of something that could have been great
They must have been on crack when they designed it. How many times do you have to go up and down?
Answer (HEX to T5b, with a visit to Club Lounge):
UP to check-in
DOWN to shops
UP to lounges (F level)
UP again to Club Lounge
DOWN to lounges (F level)
DOWN to shops
DOWN to shuttle
UP to T5b
UP again to departures level
DOWN to board the plane
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Smirnoff
Answer (HEX to T5b, with a visit to Club Lounge):
UP to check-in
DOWN to shops
UP to lounges (F level)
UP again to Club Lounge
DOWN to lounges (F level)
DOWN to shops
DOWN to shuttle
UP to T5b
UP again to departures level
DOWN to board the plane
That's five UPs and five DOWNs. Genius.
Why are you slumming it in the J lounge, Smirny? Or is this just worst-case scenario?
It is genius in the light of the muppets on the planning enquiry who insisted it had to be the same capacity but a smaller area - hence the "piled on top" format of the current, squat, building.
I would love to know, where are the two directors that were sacked ?? while they both had a helping hand in the T5 disaster, they most problerly have been handed a huge payout and no doubt sitting in their big gardens chilling enjoying the hot weather, leaving the likes of everyday people to clear up the mess. These men should have been made to stay and face the music, but instead they have been pushed out through the back door and enjoying their lavish life styles while we suffer when we go through T5 which was paid through good tax payers money.
no doubt these guys will land another high profile job, WW should kicked their A*** a long time ago!!
Connecting through T5 last week and on Monday on all-T5 flights, was remarkably pain free for us.
Thinking back though, it will be very interesting to see how full the building feels when all the flights have been transferred. Galleries North already feels full, Galleries South quieter and more intimate, whilst the shopping level already seems busy. I can imaging the train between a, b and c eventually becoming a bun fight too.
The consequences of too small a footprint being available.
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Coming from CDG and going back over the last two weeks has been quite pleasant. There are still some minor irritating details such as the landside lifts but it has been overall quite good. In line with the previous comments, there seems to be a number of possible bottlenecks when long-haul flights move to T5:
- South security, especially the fast track lane, can be very slow, even when there are just 5 passengers queuing
- two IRIS machines, one of which can be out of service, doesn't seem to be enough
- the number of baggage belts for T5 (I've seen nine baggage belts numbered 3 through 11, I guess I must have missed 1&2) seems rather understated.
