T5 Chaos Set To Continue At Heathrow

Following a disastrous opening day at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, British Airways chief executive, Willie Walsh, today refused to resign today as the chaos shows no sign of clearing up by the weekend. Having confirmed that BA had "got things wrong" after a day of severe delays at the new £4.3 billion facility, Walsh then admitted that further flight cancellations can be expected on Saturday.

Led by serious problems with BA's new baggage sorting regime, the entire system came to halt within hours of opening yesterday, forcing Mr Walsh to concede that plans to move more of BA’s Heathrow operations to T5 at the end of April were “under review”.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has today taken full advantage of the chaos to reaffirm his position on the future of Heathrow owner BAA. O’Leary stated: "This morning’s chaos at Heathrow provides further compelling evidence of the need to break up the BAA monopoly.

“We should allow competition between the London airports to deliver more efficient facilities, better passenger service and lower costs where the BAA airport monopoly has failed.

"If the BAA London airport monopoly was split up, competition would deliver better services and efficient terminals which actually work as opposed to complicated Taj Mahals like Heathrow’s T5. It is high time to break up this BAA airport monopoly."

According to the Ryanair boss, the Civil Aviation Authority’s regime has spent too much time “rewarding” BAA with price increases, rather than looking after the interests of users.