In the business world, being a new boss in a company can be so challenging! That is what the new boss at Heathrow, John Holland-Kaye, was experiencing from the first day into his new job! It happened that a serious computer problem occurred at the airport making it difficult for the passengersto find their baggage! This proved to be a hard time for the new boss who was put straight into a fire fighting mode.
The computer system at Terminal 5, which is the home to the British Airways, went down on Thursday a problem which persisted for days, resulting to the problems. Workers at the airport have been doing extra work to ensure the problem is solved. They embarked on manual sorting of the bags to reach the owners.Heathrow, being the third busiest airport in the world, it is needless to say the extent of the inconveniences caused!
In 2008, when Terminal 5 was being opened, several flights were cancelled and passengers lost their bags, which were never recovered.
The airport’s Terminal 2 project which had cost £2.5bn was reopened last week by Queen Elizabeth and had suffered minor IT problems too. As a result, the Thai and Turkish Airlines delayed moving from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2, after the airport found faults when testing the baggage system.
These, and many others, are the challenges Holland-Kaye must be prepared to face in this ever busy airport that happen to operate at almost full capacity. Meanwhile, he is trying to seek for permission to build another runway to be co-owned by Ferrovial Company in Spain and other partners. He says this is necessary for the company to remain ahead of their rivals including Frankfurt and Amsterdam Schiphol.
By Oliver Derek
