The newly opened Terminal 5 building at Heathrow airport appears to have landed into chaos in its first day of operation, with passengers experiencing severe delays and cancelled flights both on inward and outward services.

T5 opened at 4 am on Thursday but by 2 pm British Airways, the airline which has exclusive use of the terminal, was forced to cancel 34 flights.

The cancelled flights included those to European destinations including Munich, Frankfurt, Paris and Brussels as well as Glasgow and Aberdeen. Passengers departing from and arriving at the new terminal also suffered lengthy delays in retrieving their bags.

There were also difficulties with road signs, problems when paying at a car park, and a broken down escalator.

The problems experienced in the first day of the operation of the £4.3bn international gateway were attributed by a spokesman as "teething problems".

The terminal is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever in Europe, and comprises 16 major interconnecting projects and 140 sub-projects. T5, which has taken over five years to build is expected to facilitate up to 30 million passengers each year.

Over 60,000 people have worked a total of 100 million man hours to build T5. BAA’s next major project at Heathrow is the construction of Heathrow East, which will replace Terminal 2 and The Queens Building. Work will start this year and is due to be completed by 2012.

Source: Building.co.uk