British Airways: Heathrow chaos not our 'finest hour'

LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Airways officials say flight cancellations may extend into Saturday as delays and baggage problems continued to plague Heathrow Airport's Terminal Five.
Officials hope to operate 80 percent of scheduled Terminal 5 flights Friday, but cancellations include BA flights to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen

British Airways, the only airline operating from the new $8.6 billion terminal, canceled 20 percent of its flights from the site on Friday, a spokesman said, and predicted possible delays for the remaining 80 percent. On Friday, passengers were initially allowed only hand luggage on flights from the terminal, but the airline later allowed checked-in luggage as well, the spokesman said.

British Airways CEO Willie Walsh Friday issued a statement admitting the chaos was not the airline's "finest hour."

He said: "Yesterday was definitely not British Airways' finest hour.

"We disappointed many people and I apologize sincerely. I take responsibility for what happened.

"The buck stops with me. A number of issues led to the events we saw yesterday. There were problems in the car parks, airport areas, computer glitches and the baggage system."

He added: "In isolation, they would not have had the impact they did, but in combination they led to a level of disruption we never took control of during the day." "Our performance was not good enough. We did not deliver for our customers and we should have."

The problems are an embarrassment for British Airways and Heathrow, which spent two decades building the terminal. Airport operator BAA promised that the terminal would be able to handle dozens of planes at the same time and process 12,000 bags an hour