New look

We've made some changes
to The Sunday Times

Navigation - link to other main sections from here

From Times Online

April 1, 2008

Load your own baggage with Heathrow Terminal 5 game

It's not easy being a T5 baggage handler, says Ginny McGrath, who loaded only one bag in three minutes using a free online game

Ginny McGrath

Air travellers whose luggage went astray at Heathrow last week can play at being a Terminal 5 baggage handler with a free online computer game.

The game is called Terminal Panic and has been played by around 35,000 people so far. This is expected to increase as the game expands virally, with people recommending it to their friends by email.

Players control a character that bears a striking resemblance to the BA chief executive Willie Walsh. The aim is to pick up bags, take them through a scanner, and deliver them onto a conveyor belt without getting struck by an errant baggage trolley.

In the background plays Flower Duet from the opera Lakmé, by Léo Delibes. It's become one of the most recognisable pieces of classical music after it was adapted by British Airways for an advertising campaign in the 1990s.

The game is at www.weewilliewalsh.co.uk and was developed by Glasgow-based games company T-Enterprise. It released MuccaChucka last week, a game based on the divorce trial of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills.

The BA game is more challenging than it sounds - we managed to deliver only one bag onto the belt in three minutes - so perhaps rather than mock BA, it's aim is to engender sympathy for the carrier. Sadia Chishti, managing director of T-Enterprise said: “We’re big fans of Willie Walsh. He inherited a lot of problems with British Airways and is doing a good job of fixing them."