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Terminal 5 was supposed to be the saving grace for British Airways and London Heathrow, one of the most congested airports in Europe. Instead, as the glitzy new terminal enters its second week, passengers are bracing for more chaos.British Airways canceled another 54 flights at the new terminal Monday as it struggled with the computerized baggage-handling system that has already led to at least 15,000 pieces of misdirected baggage. The airline, which has canceled more than 250 flights since the gleaming terminal opened Thursday as its main hub, said Monday that the situation was improving daily and that it hoped to fly at full capacity again soon.

But the disruptions, which are set to last for at least the rest of this week, could not come at a worse time for British Airways, which had enjoyed a turnaround under its chief executive, Willie Walsh, who cut jobs and focused on the more lucrative premium travel business between the United States and Britain.

source: International Herald Tribune

British Airways travellers face more disruption this weekend as the airline continues to struggle to overcome problems at its showpiece £4.3bn Terminal 5 at Heathrow.

The company plans to cancel 54 flights on Saturday, on top of the 140 eliminated in the past two days since Thursday’s disastrous opening of T5, which saw thousands of bags lost and some passengers forced to sleep in the terminal overnight.

The chaos forced BA to pull a multi-million pound advertising campaign planned for next week that would have trumpeted the speed at which travellers should be able to move through the airport and collect their baggage.

source: FT.com

French air traffic controllers started a five-day strike Monday that immediately forced the cancellation of several flights, mainly at Paris-Orly airport.

France’s General Directorate for Civil Aviation (DGAC) said one flight in two has been cancelled at Orly and there were average delays of two hours, which could increase during the day, according to spokesman Patrick Gandil.

At the main Paris airport Charles de Gaulle, operations were relatively normal with only half-hour delays reported on some flights, the DGAC said.

source: Inquirer.net

Domestic airline delays in 2007 were the second worst on record, the Transportation Department said Tuesday.Flights in the U.S. were late more than 26 percent of the time last year, a slightly better performance than in 2000, when airlines were tardy 27.4 percent of the time. The federal government began collecting airlines on-time data in 1995.

source: SignOnSanDiego.com

The small Norwegian airline Coast Air declared bankruptcy and immediately canceled all flights on Wednesday, saying it had been stunned by unexpected and unsustainable fourth-quarter losses.

Coast Air was Norway’s fourth-largest airline, after SAS Norway, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Wideroe. It had eight routes in Norway and two international connections, to Copenhagen, Denmark, and Gdansk, Poland.

source: Chron.com

Air crash investigators were Saturday continuing to seek the cause of an apparent power failure that forced a British Airways Boeing 777 into a crash landing at London’s Heathrow airport, narrowly averting disaster.

Flight schedules were returning to normal at Europe’s busiest airport following heavy delays and cancellations in the wake of Thursday’s incident.

However airport authorities were advising passengers to contact airlines before setting off, indicating there could still be problems.

source: CNN

Tiger Airways Singapore, flight TR717 from Perth to Singapore, was postponed on Saturday night after the captain became concerned about his crew working overtime.

Because of its low-cost, the airline has no stand-by crew at destinations other than Melbourne and Singapore.

Matt Hobbs, spokesman for the airline’s sister company Tiger Airways Australia, said he didn’t expect overtime issues would be a problem for Adelaide passengers to Melbourne.

“‘They (international crew) can work for 10 hours straight so I don’t think they will go out of hours in Adelaide because it’s a 50-minute flight.”’

Angry passengers were informed of the flight cancellation at 10.30pm, three hours after its scheduled departure, and were told to go home and return the following day or stay at the airport.

source: News.com.au

A strike by Virgin Atlantic cabin crew, which would have seen 48-hour walkouts this week and next, has been called off.

The deal between the airline and the trade union, Amicus, will see the crew get a 4.8 per cent pay increase this year and a guarantee of a rise in line with inflation next year.

But the agreement came too late for the airline to reinstate the flights it had cancelled – with Virgin having already made alternative arrangements for those passengers affected.

source: telegraph.co.uk

Airline bmi is to terminate its daily return service between Inverness and London Heathrow because of a lack of bookings.

The company said flights on the route, which was launched in March 2004, would end on 29 March.

Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander said it was a “‘disgraceful decision'” to close the city’s only link to Heathrow.

Scottish Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson is seeking a meeting with the airline to urge a rethink on the move.

fuente: BBC

After some 250 travelers were stranded Christmas Day, discount airline Skybus has canceled more flights out of Columbus, where the company is based.

Flights to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Bellingham, Washington, were scrubbed Wednesday morning.

The problems began a day earlier when a Skybus plane that flies to multiple cities each day was found to have a mechanical problem.

That triggered a chain of Christmas cancellations, sending customers scrambling to make alternative travel arrangements.

source: WTOL