squawk

That’s superb, PETER01!

To me it feels like T5 has been there forever, but I only really flew regularly from Heathrow post 2009, so I suppose it is all relative. I certainly remember the old T2 roof terrace in the early-to-mid 1990s. Lovely smell of aviation fuel...

tomparskate

I remember when T5 opened and I was only 13 Yeats old! Was flying through with my dad and absolutely blown away by it!

To to be honest, I still love flying through T5! T2 is good but T5 will always have a special place in my heart

cruisr

I can’t believe it’s been 10years since the opening fiasco. Time heals all wounds, yes?

sxc

I remember hearing at the time that there was a rumour BA was burning piles of bags because it was cheaper to do that and pay compensation than repatriate the bags. Any truth to that?

RockyRobin

Wow another opportunity to feel old.

my father worked at BAA back then and he was in charge of engineering and risk for T5 (HEX before that) so I am looking forward to passing on the I feel old feeling to him when he comes to visit on Friday!

If I remember correctly the baggage mayhem was because someone forgot to load up the correct flight schedule to the system and on the day it was the test system that was running?

Can anyone confirm my memory serves me right? Whose fault was it and what were the consequences?

corporate-wage-slave

I think that was about right. I went through on day1 and it was more or less OK, no more glitches than I've seen with other airport openings (and I've been around long enough to remember what is now CDG T1 opening). I then went through again on day3 and it was carnage very difficult operating conditions, because the baggage could not connect through to the Ready to Fly system properly. The warehouse then filled up, trolleys were brought out, and eventually - rather late on - BA said it could not check anyone with hold luggage. It either went in the cabin or "come back tomorrow". I was HBO so unaffected, but I came in from EDI to connect on to Hong Kong. The person next to me on the 747 asked the cabin crew if his bags had been loaded, their reply was a long but deliberately ambiguous version of "we haven't a clue", at which point the passenger over the aisle said "this flight is going out with almost no baggage in the hold". This was actually true but it came as such as shock to by neighbour that he said he had to get off the aircraft to get to his bags, he was incredibly upset about it. Despite the pleading of the CSD he walked off, followed by another passenger, then a dribble of more passengers over the next 20 minutes. The captain made an announcement saying they had lost their slot, and if anyone else wanted to offload now would be a good moment. At which point something like 100 passengers stood up. The service was abandoned two hours later. Probably my all time low in flying BA.

BApilotinsider

Should BA take over the running of T5? From Reuters...

aidy

i can see both positives and negatives ,I always found T7 to be a bit of a dive, but i understand they are doing up the place (correct me if i'm wrong as i've not been for years).

Then there will be other aspects, of the shopping mall, will the stores have to fall to the whim of BA (e.g. food prices to reflect BoB, third party lounges being turfed out).. a JV maybe a good idea but not solely BA.

missdimeaner

I’m flying to NY from T5 that day ! Will the celebrations be limited to the general areas or will there be some sort of gesture in the lounges too.
I will try to take some photos if I spot anything....

Globaliser

I can't believe it's been 10 years, either. A few months ago, when I was walking through the building I was trying to remember how old the building is, and my best guess off the top of my head was about 7 years.

I'm not sure that there are really many wounds to heal. As ever, BAEC FT focuses on every tiny niggle and imperfection in the hardware and in daily operations, and blows them up out of all proportion into major disasters, which almost all of them are not. Every airport terminal everywhere has niggles and imperfections, and T5 doesn't exactly stand out as being particularly bad in this department. Overall, T5 was a huge improvement over the dingy ambience offered by T4 at the end of BA's tenure there, and the T5 atmosphere is still largely the same even if the building has steadily become busier over the decade.

As for day 1, I remember deliberately scheduling a trip to depart from Chek Lap Kok on its own day 1 in 1998, just out of interest (and that enabled me to arrive at Kai Tak one last time). And indeed, that was an "interesting" experience.

MickV

I had a great experience after connecting back from HKG to BHD two days after it opened.

Flight from Hong Kong arrived on time. Thought the space and brightness of the terminal was incredible. We had to transfer over to T1 for the flight back to BHD with BMI and the difference in the two terminals was striking!

We had been told when we checked in at HKG that they couldn't guarantee that our bags would arrive back with us but it would be sorted as soon as possible. As it happened our two bags came out first on the belt. First and last time that had happened.

CloudCoder

I'm arriving at T5 on March 16. Hoping that the building is still standing, immediately after all the raucous celebration of the ten-year anniversary.

Raffles

For passengers, the current set-up is probably better. IIRC HAL is allowed to make a certain profit on its investment. The more it spends (get those Gold plated taps in!) the more it is allowed to charge airlines. This does actually benefit passengers albeit with some waste.

BA would presumably turn off the investment tap entirely on the basis that the passengers were coming anyway so what's the point? The showers in the lounges are probably a sign of what would come.

Mutu

In fairness the long term future of T7 has been under a cloud for many year with PANYNJ pondering the redevelopment of terminals across JFK. I can quite see why BA delayed investment at that time

I believe BA have extended their lease twice now but the current end is in the relatively short term still in the scheme of things, but nonetheless there seems to be a recognition that investment is needed - perhaps they have now negotiated a compensation clause with PANYNJ should T8 get built out and T7 demolished?

With a bit of investment T7 should be a pleasant experience despite the evening crush most days. Certainly needs a step up to counter the "convenience" o9f the co-located VS/DL flights at both ends

missdimeaner

Will they be cleaning the windows in celebration???