Chaos at Terminal 5 costs BA £16m
[4th April 2008]
British Airways has said that the disastrous opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 cost the airline around £16 million, although the longer term cost is likely to be far higher.
BA has just released its latest passenger figures for March, the first to reflect the impact of the opening of T5. "The impact was borne by the short haul schedule where there were 300 cancelled flights, equating to 0.2 percentage points of capacity. The financial impact of these events is estimated to be around £16 million, reflecting all costs associated with the disruption and lost revenue opportunities," says BA in a statement.
The number of passengers flying with British Airways in March this year fell by 0.9% compared to March last year. The percentage of seats occupied was 75.4%. Premium traffic was down by 5% and non-premium traffic by 2.3%.
BA says the timing of Easter this year has also had an impact on its passenger figures in March: "Comparisons between March 2007 and 2008 are complicated by the timing of Easter, which fell in April in 2007, and by the de-linking of UK school holidays from the Easter period and into the middle of April. This altered both premium and non-premium travel patterns, an impact which is also likely to be seen in April's statistics".
Looking to the future, BA says that market conditions remain unchanged. "Underlying conditions in long haul premium traffic continue to be strong, while short haul premium and long haul non-premium continue to be weak," the airline reports.
There are more flight cancellations at Terminal 5 today. BA says there will be 34 flights cancelled in total, all on domestic and European routes. But BA hopes that Saturday will be the first day when there are no cancellations and it operates a full schedule.
Written by: Nick Purdom
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