Institutional hubris meets the empowered consumer: The Terminal 5 song

A while ago I treated you to the full transcript of my own experience with British Airways on my return journey, which got delayed a full 28 hours. Back last summer that was an epic delay and worthy of headlines, but it pales in comparison to the debacle known as Terminal 5.

Newspapers here in the UK have been full of articles cataloguing the events that transpired when the new Terminal was finally opened to the public, mass-scale computer failures preventing anyone from logging in to check in passengers, an incomprehensible baggage-handling system that failed as soon as it was turned on, an elaborate and beautiful glass-covered building with inadequate signing and logic to handling vast quantities of people needing to move from one floor to the next, the list is endless.

Outraged consumers have filled columns and airwaves venting their spleen about how this kind of behaviour can be tolerated and how come no one has sued the pants off BA and BAA by now - it surely would happen in the States. The most creative expression of consumer-generated discontent is the Terminal 5 song that captures brilliantly some of the madness that this episode in the history of disasters known as BA/BAA ventures and service - it's even catchy! Bring on the empowered consumer!