It's no secret that the opening of Heathrow's Terminal 5 wasn't the greatest success in British aviation history. The words "pissup", "brewery" and "couldn't organise a" were very much to mind as the umpteen-billion pound Richard Rogers-designed structure conspired to lose thousands of bags and strand countless passengers (including that nice Naomi Campbell, no less) when the ribbon was officially cut in March.
With things having settled into some semblance of order, top brass at BA have decided to launch a marketing campaign, reminding people that T5 exists. Wisely eschewing descriptions of the cutting-edge architecture or the reams of retail therapy that travellers can avail themselves of, the advertisements shill the somewhat humble refrain: "Terminal 5 is working".
But is reminding people of the terminal's troubled birth pains really the best promotional device? One ad expert thinks not, saying that it will just remind fliers of what went wrong. And it's a boast that might prove a little hollow if the planned "autumn offensive" by the Plane Stupid lot succeeds in fouling things up again.
Still - they could always introduce the piggy-back plane plan mooted in April as a last-ditch measure.
Image courtesy of otzberg's Flickrstream via the Creative Commons Attribution license
