UPDATE 04.04.08: BA is reporting that the fuckupetry at Terminal 5 has an estimated financial impact of $31.9M. Oh, and then Naomi Campbell stopped by to curse bless the place.
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So the Brits had decided to expand Heathrow Airport (‘bout goddamn time they did something to that clusterfuck), and the Queen was there to open the newest terminal, Terminal 5. A huge 6 year project designed to be visually appealing and passenger friendly, at a cost of $8.6B.
Check It: Heathrow Terminal 5 Opened (video)
As you might expect, the environmentalists were none too pleased about it, citing added pollution among their concerns. Right away the new British Airways terminal had “technical glitches” and began canceling flights and separating passengers from their luggage. As of today there are at least 15,000 bags stacked up in ridiculous heaps at the airport, most of their owners having been sent on without them. Holy shit. If I was on vacay and took a trip across the Atlantic only to get there with no luggage, I’d be one pissed off motherfucker.
Now, as more and more reports of the problems with terminal 5 get reported, it becomes glaringly obvious that there has to have been a colossal fuckup at the project management level of this little endeavor to cause the kind of systemic failures that are happening. I mean, we’re not just talking about long ass security lines and backed up toilets, this is like a Britney/Paula/Mariah breakdown all in one. Or who knows, maybe it is a counteraction from Nature. Some karmic, universal kick in the balls – it could happen, no?
Check it: Before and After (video)
ButtercupPunch - "La clique, c’est chic!" 
March 29, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I flew through Heathrow from Spain last year. Had a two-hour stopover, and it was a nightmare — I have never seen such chaos. Delays, lost luggage, long lineups, security way overboard due to the scare a week or two earlier.
Needless to say, my luggage did not make it onto my connecting flight. I was told, in fact, that there was so much lost luggage sitting in hangars at Heathrow that they were putting them on a BARGE and taking them to Rome and sending them home via the Rome airport!!!
I got my back two weeks later. I have no idea whether it ever went to Rome.
But what a nightmare Heathrow is. Avoid it at all costs!
I am going back to Spain for a week this summer and delighted I found a direct flight and can avoid Heathrow.
March 29, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I love that you’re comparing the non-functionality of a British air terminal to Mariah Carey’s Glitter days. Dark times indeed!
March 29, 2008 at 7:27 pm
So then Heathrow is run by the Bush administration you say?
March 30, 2008 at 9:29 am
Heathrow is actually my PREFERRED airport in London. Gatwick has twice lost my bags (including all my homeward-bound Christmas presents – that was a special holiday!) and is a disorganized mess. I always get lost, despite taking the same route every time, and can only imagine what it would be like if you didn’t speak English. They would find your brittle corpse somewhere in the tunnels and twists of Terminal C, probably with everyone else’s missing luggage.
Luton is the worst airport EVER. I would far rather hang out in central American airports than in Luton. Even thinking about it makes my blood pressure rise.
Flying to London on Tuesday! Will be going through Gatwick. I’m not checking any bags, to be on the safe side, so we’ll see…
March 31, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Heathrow is a nightmare. Everytime I’m there, there are piles and piles of unclaimed bags. I’m the only person I know who hasn’t gotten their luggage lost there.
Also, a scary story. I checked in once, and as I was waiting for my flight I examined my ticket and noticed it was the WRONG NAME. And I’m talking, seriously wrong – like, my first name is just 6 letters, and this first name was about 14 letters, with my last name as a middle name and a completely different last name. How on earth did they give that to me?! My passport is very clear!!
So I go to customer service, and they are befuddled. Then I got questioned for about 20 minutes on who I was and why I was in London and what was I doing in Geneva (um, WORKING, jackasses). Finally they reprinted my ticket with my proper name.
March 31, 2008 at 2:05 pm
@badenbaden: dude, that is crazy. but i can really see that happening. one night i was boarding my umpteenth connection for the day, it was late but i had been seated in the gate area for 20mins (not like i came running up at the last minute) and the gates were arranged so that you walked through the doorway marked ‘B25’ but once on the other side there were 3 separate jetways to 3 different flights, anyway i was headed to dallas or something, doing my thing, showed my boarding pass to 5 different boarding agents on the way to my seat, get seated, stow my bag, buckle in…..and hear the captain make his pre-flight announcement for flight #xyz to MOSCOW.
every single one of those idiots just laughed it off as they shoo’d me off the plane – how the fuck do you mistake dallas/ft.worth for domodedovo, russia!?!
April 4, 2008 at 9:18 am
The world has indeed gone mad :
April 5, 2008 at 6:24 am
i can’t remember if I already told you but I was once stranded in Heathrow in a strike for THREE DAYS. i tried REALLY hard not to bitch as i am a union girl, but there weren’t enough vouchers for hotels so even though I slept on the floor, IN LINE to have my tickets changed (yes, it was one line that lasted two days), during which time they were purposely slow and only rerouted a couple of dozen tickets despite the many hundreds and hundreds of people roaming around like refugees with airplane blankets and little plastic cups of tea. at the time i had actually been working with refugees abroad and was just meant to be catching a connecting flight home for a much needed vacation, and sometime during the second night I had a kind of secondary traumatic response and started to believe that I really had become a refugee, dependent on white people with british accents to hand me a shrinkwrapped sandwich in order to eat and unsure if I could ever return home. they never gave me a cent. just a fucking apology!
April 6, 2008 at 12:17 pm
@J.D.: holy hell, that sounds in-fucking-sane, but is exactly why I will re-route through CDG even if it takes me out of my way.
today’s cancellations at Terminal 5 are due to snow, the plague of locusts and toads should be any day now.
April 6, 2008 at 5:29 pm
SNOW? whoa.