So confident is London Heathrow's operator BAA in its ability to deliver the airport's Terminal 5 on time and on budget that BAA director of business critical systems and IT, Nick Gaines, yesterday boasted to a group of journalists that the new facility "will not have any system integration problems".
Hopefully Gaines' confidence will be rewarded and the mass of new IT systems involved in making T5 work will indeed run seamlessly and flawlessly.
However, it takes a brave person to make such a bold claim to a group of reporters, pens in hand to take note of the comment so that if things do not go as smoothly as predicted, the comment can be thrown back at its source along with a barrage of whys and wherefores.
Speaking to journalists at BA's headquarters near Heathrow yesterday, Gaines made some other impressive claims about the IT systems supporting T5. These included: "T5 has the most complex and sophisticated baggage system ever developed"; "T5 is loaded with technology every way you look"; and "T5 has one of the largest digital CCTV systems in the UK, if not the largest".
To ensure that T5 is tested to the max ahead of its planned opening on 27 March 2008, BAA is currently looking for 14,000 volunteers to take part in proving trials from September. So if you fancy being among the first visitors to T5 you can sign yourself up as a volunteer on BAA's Registration Homepage.
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