BRITISH AIRWAYS is to review the move of the remainder of its flights to Terminal 5 following last week’s debacle at the complex’s opening.

The bulk of long-haul services, which operate from Terminal 4 and account for around half the airline’s passengers, were to move on April 30.

Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, said the timing would now be reexamined.

“I think you should expect us to do that,” Walsh said. “We put a gap between the opening and the move from Terminal 4 to allow it. I’m still of the view we should continue to work on April 30, but we will have to look at it. We need to be sure the problems we encountered are completely resolved.”

On Thursday the opening of T5, which BA promised would improve passengers’ experience, turned into a shambles.

Flights were cancelled and lengthy queues formed, provoking outrage. The disruption continued yesterday with further cancellations, and is expected to rumble on today.

Walsh said there were no serious flaws, insisting the chaos resulted from a combination of problems.

“Some were just silly things, like access to the car parks, that meant the crew security channel was not adequately manned to get our people into the building.”

The problems come at a sensitive time for BA, which from today faces open competition on US routes from Heathrow for the first time in 30 years.

Only four airlines – BA, Virgin, American and United – were permitted to fly to America, but an open-skies treaty has ended the restriction.

Rivals have flooded in. Seats on US routes have increased by around 20%. Despite this, Walsh said fares were unlikely to fall quickly.

“I don’t think it’s a game changer. These airlines have not paid big sums to get into Heathrow to drop prices.”

Glen Hauenstein, executive vice-president at Delta Air Lines, a new entrant, disagreed: “I think you will see aggressive discounting, particularly when you consider what might happen on London-New York because of the problems on Wall Street.”

Continental Airlines paid $209m (£105m) for four pairs of Heathrow take-off and landing slots. Jeff Smisek, president, said the airline was prepared to buy more: “They are scarce and expensive, and show the demand to get into Heathrow.”

Meanwhile Ferrovial, the majority owner of airports operator BAA, has received an offer to buy Belfast City airport. JP Morgan’s infrastructure arm has made an approach, but it is not clear if the talks will lead to a deal – or if Ferrovial is happy to sell.

A sale of the airport, valued at about £100m, would raise funds for Ferrovial, which is struggling with the mountain of debt it accumulated through its £10.3 billion takeover of BAA in 2006.

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