On Apr. 5, the new Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow airport was hit by new baggage chaos as a computer glitch forced British Airways to cancel 24 short-haul flights.

"This morning, a software problem has arisen in the baggage system at Terminal 5. This is entirely BAA's responsibility," a spokeswoman for airport operator BAA Ltd said.

In a statement explaining the cancellations, British Airways said: "We are now having to manually reconcile bags for each flight, which takes considerably more time than using the automated system."

The 4.3-billion-pound (US$8.7-billion) terminal, used solely by British Airways, has become a public relations disaster, with computers, baggage handling systems, lifts and telephone wires meeting with problems shortly after it opened on Mar. 27.

The airline said last week that it expected the chaotic opening of T5 to cost it about 16 million pounds (some US$32 million).