BA's real mistake

Boy, are the media ever having fun with the opening day problems at Heathrow Terminal 5! BBC News 24 even had Max Clifford on just now, saying how he would have handled the PR side of the debacle. He said he might have delayed the opening until April 1, in the hope that passengers might assume it was just an April Fool's stunt. He was making a joke (and I know it isn't funny, but this is Max Clifford we're talking about), but actually, he's sort of right. Here's why.

For almost two decades while I was living in Canada, up until I left in 1998, I was an exceptionally frequent flyer. At the time Toronto Airport was pretty inadequate: the original terminal was known as "Turmoil 1", the Air Canada terminal had originally been designed as a freight depot. (They're both gone now, in case you're planning a visit this year). Add in Canadian winter weather and a near-monopoly government-owned carrier (Air Canada), and you had a recipe for an awful travel experience. A radio comedy show once came out with the line, "we needed to get there in the worst way, so we flew Air Canada".

Fifty weeks of the year, I and the rest of the business community put up with this, with absolutely zero attention from the media. But for two weeks of the year, the routine chaos at Toronto airport was front page news in the local media. That was the annual "March break" getaway, when half the country would flee to warmer climes at the end of another harsh Canadian winter. People like me travelling at full fare every week of the year could like it or lump it, but if Mr and Mrs Ontario and their sprogs paying six bits to head down to St Pete's for a week were delayed, it was all over the front pages.

So where BA (or BAA) went wrong was in opening T5 while the Easter school break was in progress. If they'd waited another week, they might have had just as many problems, but they probably wouldn't have got nearly as much press coverage.