British Airways reveals what went wrong with Terminal 5 https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240086013/British-Airways-re...

NEWS

British Airways reveals what went

wrong with Terminal 5
British Airways has revealed the full extent of the IT problems that marred Terminal
5's opening on 27 March this year.

By Rebecca Thomson, Computer Weekly Published: 14 May 2008 16:25

British Airways has revealed the full extent of the IT problems that marred
Terminal 5's opening on 27 March this year.

Written evidence submitted to the Transport Select Committee shows that a myriad
of problems struck during the terminal's first few days, and these were exacerbated
by the way in which BA's IT staff handled the problems.

Terminal 5 is one of the most

technologically advanced airport
terminals in the world, but MPs
described its opening as a "national

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humiliation". During the first five

days, BA misplaced more than
23,000 bags, cancelled 500 flights
and made losses of £16m.

The Transport Select Committee called in Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, Colin
Matthews, airport-owner BAA's chief executive, and Nigel Rudd, a non-executive
chairman of the board, to face some tough questions earlier this month.

Willie Walsh revealed that IT problems and a lack of testing played a large part in the
trouble. But he said the airline could have coped if IT had been the only issue.

He reeled off a list of failures. Staff had not been trained properly, they were unable
to park when their car parks became too full on the day of opening, staff security
searches were delayed, and construction work on parts of the building was not
finished when the airport opened. Out of 275 lifts, 28 were not working - 17 are still
broken, with 11 still to be fixed by the end of May.

"It was a combination of factors," Walsh said. "We could have coped with a couple of
the problems. But all of the problems hitting us led to a cascade."

British Airways' written evidence showed how many IT problems staff had to contend
with. To begin with, loading staff could not sign on to the baggage-reconciliation
system. They had to reconcile bags manually, causing flight delays. Problems with
the wireless Lan at some check-in stands meant that staff could not enter
information on bags into the system using their handheld devices.

During testing on the baggage system, technicians installed software filters in the
baggage system. Their job was to prevent specimen messages generated by the
baggage system during the tests being delivered to the "live" systems elsewhere in
Heathrow. But they were accidently left in place after the terminal opened.

As a result, the Terminal 5 system did not receive information about bags
transferring to British Airways from other airlines. The unrecognised bags were
automatically sent for manual sorting in the terminal's storage facility.

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An "incorrect configuration" stopped the feed of data from the baggage-handling

system to the baggage reconciliation system. On Saturday 5 April - a week and a
half after opening - the reconciliation system failed for the whole day. Bags missed
their flights because the faulty system told staff that they had not been security
screened.

There were errors in the transmission of BA flight data between BAA and
communications and IT contractor SITA. As a result, the system did not recognise a
proportion of the bags, which were held within the T5 baggage system for manual
processing. A lack of server capacity at the terminal excacerbated the problems,
Walsh told the inquiry.

As these errors built up, more bags went unrecognised by the system, missed their
flights, or had to re-booked on new flights. The baggage-handling system froze after
becoming unable to cope with the number of messages generated by re-booking
flights, forcing managers to switch off the automated re-booking system.

By 5pm on the first day of opening, British Airways could no longer accept checked
baggage. It told passengers in the departure lounge they would be leaving without
their luggage. Anyone who had not yet checked in could choose between travelling
without baggage or re-booking their flight. Staff took unrecognised bags out of the
system and sorted them manually - this happened every day until 31 March, during
which time a total of 23,205 bags had to be manually sorted.

Walsh said BA's IT staff finally removed the software filters on 31 March, four days
after opening. This was not the only IT problem to continue for a few more days. The
airline was forced to cancel hundreds of flights as it struggled to clear the baggage
backlog and work out why the systems were failing.

"I believed at the time of the opening that the move would be successful," Walsh told
MPs. "I do regret it, but I have not actually met anyone who was able to predict the
particular problems we would encounter."

BA puts the failure to spot the IT issues down to inadequate system testing, caused
by delays to BAA's construction work. Construction work was scheduled to finish on

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17 September last year. The delays meant BA IT staff could not start testing until 31
October. Several trials had to be cancelled, and BA had to reduce the scope of
system trials because testing staff were unable to access the entire Terminal 5 site.

BAA was less keen to attribute blame, or explain in detail what went wrong.
Matthews told MPs that he had not made the time available to investigate the
problems surrounding Terminal 5's opening because he had spent his time sorting
them out. His answers did not go down well with the MPs, who accused him of
complacency.

"I made a very specific decision that, rather than take the time for operations and
technical experts to brief me on this appearance, I concluded that my responsibility
was to fix issues with passengers," he said.

Most of Terminal 5's problems have now been ironed out, and BA staff are working
to resolve those that still exist. BA has postponed the transfer of long-haul flights
from Terminal 4. Originally planned for 30 April, the move now will not happen until
at least early June.

"Clearly our reputation has been damaged, but I am satisfied that we understand
around 95% of the issues that led to our problems," Walsh said. "We are now
working very hard to demonstrate that Terminal 5 is and can be a fantastic success."

Read more on IT project management

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British Airways to outsource British Airways IT outage:

contact centre work What went wrong with its
datacentre?

By: Karl Flinders By: Caroline Donnelly

British Airways IT glitch Terminal 5 problems should

caused by human error,
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have been avoided, say MPs
says IAG CEO

By: Lis Evenstad By: Rebecca Thomson

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