Despite announcements to the contrary, it doesn’t seem like things are getting any better at Heathrow’s T5. There are 15,000 bags still stranded, and BA has brought in 400 employees as “volunteers” to manually clear the backlog since the computer systems aren’t working 100%. At the same time, BA’s CEO, Willie Walsh, is saying that the system is “generally working well.” BA has already cancelled 54 flights form the terminal for Monday, and more are planned for Tuesday.
First off, why isn’t BA paying the employees who they’ve got in cleaning up the mess? Asking them to volunteer their service is an insult to the little man, especially when they didn’t design the busted baggage handling system.
And beyond that, why is it taking so long to troubleshoot the baggage handling system? I guess getting the code fixed takes time, but it is hard to believe that the system is so fubar’d that the fixes take this long to develop and implement. Anyone remember the fiasco in Denver with their new airport’s baggage handling system? Apparently BA didn’t, and now they are paying the price.
And what is causing the cancellation and delay of the flights? Is it just that they cannot get luggage to them? Start flying luggage-free, like they did six weeks ago. That would at least let them get the flights off the ground. Plus it would lower the crowds, as people who know they cannot check bags won’t bother showing up anyways. Of course, it doesn’t give them thousands of passengers to test their systems on, so maybe that’s the reason they aren’t going forward with that plan.
Yeah…BA and Heathrow are pretty low on my list of good companies/places right now.
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