Turbulence Forecast Blog » British Airways http://www.turbulenceforecast.com/blog Reporting on Turbulence Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:22:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en 6 days, 20,000 lost baggage items, and FedEx to the rescue http://www.turbulenceforecast.com/blog/2008/04/01/6-days-20000-lost-baggage-items-and-fedex-to-the-rescue/ http://www.turbulenceforecast.com/blog/2008/04/01/6-days-20000-lost-baggage-items-and-fedex-to-the-rescue/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:59:30 +0000 tb_neg http://www.turbulenceforecast.com/blog/?p=106 Six days after the now infamous opening of Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow airport, more than 20,000 bags are piled up, waiting to be reconnected with owners. British Airways has canceled 13% of flights today in order to relieve pressure on the brand new terminal in order to catch up with the baggage problem.

The new baggage handling system cost nearly $8.5 billion, a staggering amount to spend on something that just doesn’t work properly. This interruption in service is estimated to cost British Airways nearly 50 million pounds, or almost $100 million US Dollars (or $5,000 a bag, which seems strange at first, unless you count potential backlash.)

Sadly, this is not an April Fool’s joke, although the joke is on the hapless passengers of British Airways, which already has a horrible reputation for baggage handling.

Fortunately, FedEx, someone who definitely knows how to handle lots of packages going to disparate places, is being brought in to help sort the mess. It’s also amusing to think about how FedEx flies planes as well (672 vs 235 for British Airways). Maybe they should buy out British Airways?

Bloomberg Article.

FedEx

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