BA to shift long-haul flights to T5 in phases

Stressing that the controversial Terminal 5 at London Heathrow (LHR) was ''working well,'' British Airways (BA), in a joint statement with airports operator BAA, has said it will begin shifting some long-haul flights here in a phased manner.

BA's short-haul transfer to T5 in March was an operational disaster.

 "We will move our Terminal 4 long-haul program into Terminal 5 in phases," BA CEO Willie Walsh said."Terminal 5 is now working well," he said.

On 5 June flights to and from eight long-haul destinations will transfer to T5, including New York JFK, Abuja, Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo, Cape Town, Lagos and Phoenix. Together they amount to about a quarter of BA's T4 schedule.

BA originally intended to shift all remaining flights from other terminals to T5 in just a couple of days at the end of April.

Separately, BAA said shareholders had agreed to inject £400 million into the group following failure to finalize certain aspects of its planned debt refinancing, "including completion of the rating process and obtaining sufficient commitments from the banks asked to participate."

Last month the UK Competition Commission indicated in its interim report on its investigation into the market for the supply of airport services by BAA that its common ownership of seven UK airports may "not be serving well the interests of either airlines or passengers."