British Airways Nightmare

IF YOU HAVEN'T seen this story yet it's worth looking at if only because it's, well, kind of funny.

British Airways just opened a state-of-the-art new terminal at Heathrow called T5. It has now been open for 5 days and the only word to describe how it is going so far is: debacle!

Terminal 5 was supposed to be the saving grace for BA and London Heathrow, one of the busiest and most congested airports in Europe. Instead, the swanky new terminal has run into problem after problem, resulting in huge delays and the cancellation of more than 250 flights already. Here's the official statement from British Airways on their website.

We are extremely sorry for the disruption our customers flying from Terminal 5 have experienced since the building opened on Thursday 27 March.

We accept the level of service we have provided has not been good enough. We are working hard to overcome the initial operational difficulties we have encountered.

Look, I love British Airways and have always enjoyed their service when I have flown with them, but this kind of massive screw-up (whatever the reason) is interesting to watch. The Financial Times is estimating that BA will lose more than 50 million dollars because the problems. And just to give you an idea how seriously people are taking the T5 disaster, shares of BA were down 2.5 percent yesterday. All because of some gliches with a new terminal.

Who could have predicted this when the Queen herself inaugurated the terminal a couple weeks ago.