News Archive

Baggage halted at new £4.3bn Terminal 5.

Flights from Heathrow's new £4.3bn Terminal 5 are departing with hand baggage only after luggage check-in was suspended due to technical problems.

British Airways, which has sole use of T5, announced check-in of all hold luggage was suspended until Friday.

The airline has already cancelled 34 flights because of baggage system problems and passengers have had to wait up to four hours for luggage.

BA said it "sincerely" apologised to all those customers affected.

The airline is advising passengers to check in with hand baggage only if they wish to travel later, or to telephone BA if they want a refund or to rebook a flight.

Travellers still need insurance.

People need to be vigilant and ensure that they have adequate travel insurance before setting off on holiday, new research suggests.

According to research carried out for Insure and Go, 1.3 million people from the UK have been victims of debit and credit card fraud while abroad in the last five years.

The data also suggests that the problem is getting worse, with a third of these crimes occurring in the last 12 months.

Terminal 5 opens for passengers.

The first passengers arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 this morning from Hong Kong on flight BA26.

By October 2008, most British Airways’ Heathrow flights will fly from the new Terminal 5 with some flights operating from a newly refurbished area at Terminal 3.

Terminal 5 is situated at the southern end of Heathrow Airport’s runway. There are dedicated transport links into the new terminal - The Heathrow Express train between central London and Terminal 5 running every 15 minutes and taking around just 20 minutes and RailAir coaches running between Terminal 5 and Reading, Woking and Feltham train stations. For road travellers, there is a new spur road at junction 14 on the M25.

Airline websites slammed for hidden charges.

Low cost airlines have been criticised for a lack of transparency in their pricing in a study looking at the usability of travel company websites.

Website usability and accessibility consultancy Webcredible evaluated 20 travel agent and airline websites against best practice guidelines.

Opodo was rated the most usable online travel website scoring 67%. British Airways was the best airline website with a score of 65%.

Overall airlines scored worse than online travel agents, averaging just 48% compared to 55% for agents.

Low fares airlines were the worst performers. Bottom was Monarch with just 38%, followed by Ryanair with 40%. Thomsonfly and xl.com both scored 44%, while flybe and easyJet were little better with 46%.

Airline offers in flight email and SMS.

Aussie airline Qantas is installing technology on all its domestic planes that will enable passengers to send and receive email and SMS via mobile phones or personal electronic devices.

The news comes just days after the first in flight mobile phone call was made on an Emirates airline flight between Dubai and Casablanca. Like Emirates, Qantas is using technology developed by AeroMobile.

Qantas trialled the new technology on a Boeing 767-300 aircraft between April 2007 and January 2008. "The evaluation of this new technology was a great success. An overwhelming majority of passengers involved in the evaluation indicated they wanted access to inflight connectivity on an ongoing basis,”