Heathrow bosses admit Terminal 2 likely to face opening-day problems — theguardian.com

Heathrow bosses admitted there is a very high risk of something going wrong on the opening day of the new £2.5bn Terminal 2, but they insist lessons have been learned from the 2008 debacle when Terminal 5 opened. With less than 12 weeks until the first passengers pass through, the terminal's operations team has embarked on a series of 180 trials with 14,000 volunteers testing the workings. The disastrous opening day of T5 saw dozens of British Airways flights cancelled, queues of disoriented staff and a new baggage system that separated passengers from their luggage. This time the 24,000 staff will each spend at least three days in the terminal training before transferring. Only one airline, United, will move in on day one and only 2,500 passengers will pass through on the first day, rising to 26,000 a day by the end of the month, and eventually 17 million a year.

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