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The chaos that blighted the opening of Heathrow’s Terminal Five, which cost over four billion pounds to construct, could have been avoided, according to a report released this week by a committee of MPs. British Airways and BAA, the operator of the airport, have been heavily criticised in the report, for causing a national embarrassment.

Their “serious failings” have been detailed in a parliamentary transport committee document which was drawn up in order to explain the reasons why the opening of the new terminal proved to be such a disaster. There were numerous problems with the opening of the terminal, including a serious failure with the baggage system. Over twenty thousand bags were left stranded as a result of the inefficient system.

MPs believe that the opening of the terminal in March of this year should have been “an occasion of national pride” but instead, it became a debacle which embarrassed the entire nation.

British Airways has accepted that inadequate and insufficient training led to the problems during the first few weeks of the terminal’s operation. The airline has revealed that testing of important IT systems was unexpectedly delayed until the end of October 2007 and this affected the ability of its staff to become familiar with the systems. British Airways also stated that they should have “delayed the move” in order to ensure that staff and systems were ready for the opening.

The general consensus at the moment is that Terminal Five has put its initial problems firmly behind it. British Airways believes that the terminal now provides the “best customer experience Heathrow has known” for several years. Furthermore, the airline holds frequent meetings with BAA in order to review the airport’s performance.

David Cameron's plans to scrap the proposed third runway at Heathrow and invest instead in high-speed rail links have been blasted by the aviation industry, business groups, and political opponents. Most outspoken of all are BA, who have accused the Conservative party of putting the country’s economy at risk and ignoring the views of the business community by putting the nation’s air links “in a strait jacket”.

The Tories have proposed a high-speed rail link from Heathrow to Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester but BA has been quick to point out that passengers from these cities flying to and from Heathrow account for a mere 3% of air traffic.

BAA, which owns Heathrow, has also expressed its disappointment over the Tories’ plans, saying that the proposed rail link would do nothing to ease the over-crowding at the airport. Numerous business organisations are in agreement with BAA but the green lobby is predictably in favour of a shift towards investment in rail transport. If the Tories win the next election, construction of the new line would start in 2015 and would last twelve years costing £15.6 billion, with private funding accounting for another £4.4 billion.

The Liberal Democrats are all in favour of the Tories’ proposals but have said that it remains to be seen whether the plan is just another of David Cameron’s “empty promises”. Ruth Kelly, the departing transport secretary, has described the proposals as being “politically opportunistic, economically illiterate and hugely damaging to Britain's national interests". The Scottish National Party meanwhile criticises the fact that the plans leave Scotland out of the equation.

When an industry is in trouble, is it the best move to open doors or to close them? Does it make sense for a financially struggling football team to buy new expensive players in the hope that they generate more money somehow? Does it make sense for Heathrow to be thinking about building the long debated and now infamous third runway?

The dramatic rise in fuel prices means that airlines have been stretched to their limits. Some of the smaller companies have had to give in and hang up their boots, XL being the latest. The fuel price is the biggest blow to an airline, but, according to a report by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) this month, a large proportion of that fuel could and should be reduced if planes didn’t have to circle over the airports waiting for a runway to become available.

Heathrow might be the busiest international airport in the world, but its two runways are being pushed to their limits. Advice has been generated by the management consultants Mott MacDonald and their director of Aviation Strategy, Laurence Price, made it pretty clear that building a new runway at Heathrow would help the airlines cut down on the amount of fuel they have to pump into their planes. At the moment airlines are forking out roughly 40% of their costs on fuel alone. Is it time to start speculating to accumulate?

London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has long been an outspoken critic of both Gatwick and Heathrow, saying that the potential success of the 2012 Olympics could well be jeopardised by the inefficiencies of the capital’s airports.

He has now come up with the idea of a phased closing down of Heathrow (and possibly Gatwick too) if his plans come to fruition for a replacement airport in the Thames estuary, probably on a man-made island two miles north of the Isle of Sheppey. The water is only ten to thirteen feet deep there and the island for the airport could be constructed using landfill. With no neighbours to consider, the airport could operate 24 hours a day and expansion to six runways from the four initially planned would not be a problem either.

High speed rail links would whisk passengers to and from central London in around 35 minutes and a rail connection to the Channel Tunnel would mean that the Continent was also easily accessible, with an estimated journey time to Brussels of just an hour and a half.

Boris Johnson takes his inspiration in part from Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong, which was built on reclaimed land and opened in 1998 after a $20 billion building programme. It operates 24 hours a day and has won various awards for being the best airport.

Johnson thinks that his plan could be the answer to the heavy congestion at Heathrow, which was recently described by one former airline chief as a “third world airport... a national disgrace”. Heathrow would in turn become a British Silicone Valley with high-tech business parks and affordable housing.

The travelling public will have to make their own minds up – have BA been caught trying to dupe passengers with their advertising campaign, or was it an honest human error?

Earlier this month, The Sunday Times brought to light an inaccuracy in the BA Terminal 5 advertising campaign which claimed on its website that 90% of its flights “were taking off within fifteen minutes of its scheduled time”.

Not so said critics, pointing out that BA were actually talking about the time planes left the terminal (a Civil Aviation Authority convention) and not when they actually took off. Given the high incidence of delays at Heathrow as planes taxi for up to half an hour waiting for a slot, the wording of the advert was misleading at best. BA blame a human error on the part of their marketing staff and advertising agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

BA are spending £6 million in an attempt to persuade the public that T5 is now working well, despite its rocky start this March when chaos reigned, with flights cancelled, baggage lost and passengers enduring a thoroughly miserable experience. After the Sunday Times made its revelation, the wording was quickly changed to: “Yesterday at T5 90% of flights left on time”. The website aims to provide passengers with up-to-date statistics on delays and arrivals and also average check-in times.

Rivals Virgin Atlantic were quick to step into the fray, saying that BA avoid the evening peak period when calculating the average check-in time. They are expected to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Concerns have been raised over mixed-mode runways after a close shave at Heathrow airport at the end of last month. At the moment Heathrow operates segregated alternated runways, meaning that arrivals use one runway and departures use another, with the usage being switched round at regular intervals to share out the noise problem of arrivals between local communities. Mixed-mode runways allow for runways to be used for a mixture of arrivals and departures. This would mean a potential increase of 15% capacity or an extra 60,000 flights a year.

On July 28th, a BA plane leaving the southern runway came close to collision with a Virgin flight taking off for New York from the northern runway. The Virgin flight did not in fact land but carried on climbing, meaning that the pilot of the BA flight had to take evasive action as the other plane cut across his path, leaving a gap of only 20 seconds.

Tom Beaton of Isleworth in Middlesex, who witnessed the manoeuvre - technically termed a “go around” - is convinced that disaster was imminent and sees this as a clear indication of how dangerously crowded the airspace around the airport is. He feels that the desire for profit has meant that people’s normal “human and moral judgments” have “deserted them”. If mixed-mode runways were to be introduced at Heathrow, the economic benefits would be worth an annual £2.5 billion.

As well as safety fears, there are grave concerns that local residents would be offered no break at all from the noise of arrivals, complaints about which vastly outweigh grievances over planes taking off. Campaigners say that the respite from the noise is the only thing which keeps residents sane.

A Boeing 747 flying from Heathrow to Melbourne last month was forced to make an emergency landing in the Philippines after a hole the size of a car appeared in the undercarriage.

Qantas flight QF30 had only just left Hong Kong when the problem arose and the pilot had to make an emergency descent from 29,000 feet to 10,000 feet as pressure problems in the cabin suddenly became apparent.

Passengers describe hearing a loud bang, feeling a rush of air and seeing a large hole exposing the cargo beneath the floor. Oxygen masks were quickly donned and passengers praised the quick action of the pilot and co-pilot which led to the situation being resolved safely.

At first there were fears that this explosion may have been terrorism related, but sniffer dogs at Manila airport were unable to detect explosives and this has since been ruled out. It now seems likely that an exploding oxygen cylinder in the hold was responsible for the blast, and Qantas are now examining all oxygen cylinders on its 747s.

Qantas has the reputation of being the world’s most trusted airline and prides itself on never having had a fatal crash. The Australian media has, however, reported various misgivings over dropping standards as more and more maintenance work is outsourced abroad. Even pilots for the airline have complained about safety standards being eroded because of commercial pressures.

The Australian Civil Aviation authorities announced yesterday that a two week investigation of Qantas' safety standards was to be carried out as a result of the incident.

You must have been living down a hole if you weren’t aware of some of the nightmares Heathrow airport has been having over the past year or so. It might come as a surprise then to hear that the west London mini-city is the world’s busiest international airport. The World Traffic Report by the Airports Council Internationals (ACI) has revealed that Heathrow is the overall winner in terms of passengers coming through its doors and has clocked up a staggering 62 million passengers in 2007.

Europe is certainly where the most people fly. From the top five airports on the list, four were in Europe and the other was Hong Kong, which came in fifth but with a pretty impressive 46 million passengers a year.

After Heathrow came Paris Charles de Gaulle, then came Amsterdam and then Frankfurt. But these international airport figures differ from those that include domestic flights. If this were taken into account too, then Heathrow would come second to Chicago O’Hare, which clocked up 76 million passengers in 2007, that is more than the entire population of the UK.

To cope with the demands of 62 million people Heathrow has its 5th terminal and we all know about that. There have been plans for a third runway too but there is speculation over this as a £30 billion train link from the north to the south of Britain might take precedence.

Times are hard and airlines are set to feel the pinch in passenger numbers once the summer peak is over. However, news that bmi may fly so-called "ghost flights" this autumn, with very few or even no passengers on board, has caused outrage.

The ghost flights which operate purely to retain valuable slots at Heathrow are said to be necessary because of the “use it or lose it” policy in operation; if airlines do not use a slot eight out of ten times over a period of six months the slot is lost. For this reason cancelling under-booked flights, which may seem like the sensible solution, is simply not an option.

A peak time return slot at Heathrow has been valued at between £25 and £30 million, which perhaps goes part way to explaining the drastic plans being considered by airlines. Flybe, for instance, which operates out of Exeter, has taken the unusual step of recruiting actors to stand in as passengers on flights between Norwich and Dublin, in an attempt to meet passenger targets and avoid a hefty fine.

The recent plans have been described as “environmental vandalism” by Richard Dyer of Friends of the Earth, whilst the shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers, has also slammed the plans as not only damaging the environment but making no economic sense either.

On the same day that the story broke in the Times, bmi issued a strong denial that it would run “empty or near empty” flights from Heathrow and dismissed the reports as being without foundation. Meanwhile BA have given assurances that they will deal with the problem by instigating “sensible cuts” rather than fly ghost planes.

Not many people in the UK, or even in the world for that matter, will think of Heathrow Airport as having the best of reputations in recent times. It’s been in the news for all the wrong reasons and now it’s set to get even worse, as a recent survey by the Association of European Airlines has revealed that it’s the worst airport in Europe.

In a survey of 27 airports, Heathrow came out worst with 50% of its flights leaving 15mins or more late. So far this year the average delay time for outbound flights has been 39 mins, compared to only 17% of flights running late from Munich airport. There's more bad news with flights coming into Heathrow. Inbound flights are delayed by an average of 46 mins.

As a measure of just how bad it’s getting and how annoyed customers are, a Dutch airline has now had to set up a UK office to cope with the hundreds of complaints a week in relation to delays. They say their customers are entitled to up to £115 million compensation per year.

So what’s the problem? Well a lot of it has to do with the fact that Heathrow is totally packed to the rafters, even with the now infamous T5 on tap. There is no spare runway to help with crowded periods and it seems there’s now no end to the excuses with even the weather being cited in some instances in true British fashion. Is it time for bosses to step down? Or time for us to fly from somewhere else? If only we had a choice.