Fiasco Galore

You might not care much for the disaster being unravelled at London Heathrow this week. I wouldn’t blame you either. The noun ‘airport’ has long lost its glamorous image of handsome pilots strolling abreast a dozen stewardesses, just like in the movies; puffy crimson lips, sexy damn looks. Instead, it's been replaced by darker connotations of boredom and frustration, ‘I’ll sue you guys! Oh, you just wait!’ or the tiresome ‘I’ll never fly with your company again!’. But this is different, way different.

The humiliating fiasco leading to dozens of flight cancellations concerns the opening of a new, shiny terminal; T5. Indeed, more like Terminator 5; search and destroy luggage. The number of bags reported missing and lost at the new terminal is overwhelming, simply beyond abnormal. But doesn’t the governing body responsible for this ‘Grand’ design deserve what they’re reaping? BAA, the owner of London Heathrow should long ago have tested the system. Believe it or not, they actually expected normal passengers like you and me to stroll into the premises and physically check-in luggage using super duper machines. Never mind the technology, that’s why you’d find the instructions on the opening screen but Lord Almighty! Machines that are actually too fast for humans to handle? And only leave 2 out of 27 desks open in case anything went wrong?! That’s some contingency plan.

But there’s a more satisfying perspective to this freak circus, this zoo. It involves the British government and the Monarchy. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II pompously addressed the nation about the opening of the new terminal. Correct me if I’m wrong but why would the Queen formally present a new terminal that will inevitably lead to more global warming? Send in Gordon Brown, no harm done there, but the Queen? Someone who called on the commonwealth to help the most vulnerable nations deal with the impact of climate change?