There are good lessons for any business from the debacle of the Terminal 5 opening at Heathrow Airport. British Airways’ reputation has suffered greatly in the past few years through baggage handlers’ strikes and other misfortunes which have turned BA from ‘The World’s Favourite Airline’ to one which many overseas visitors have vowed never to use again.

So T5 was a golden opportunity to redress the balance – a wonderful ly-designed building by Lord Rogers, high-tech check-in operation, automated in almost every department. But as everyone knows it all went horribly wrong.

Things do go wrong. That can, in some ways, be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is the response. Any good public relations practitioner has in his or her armoury issues and crisis management. The key is always to try to prevent an issue becoming a crisis.

Staff at T5 had been trained for many weeks on the new systems, but it seems no-one had done any crisis planning. No-one had switched off the power to see how staff would handle not having the computer systems, or how to move the baggage. There was no plan B that could be brought swiftly into operation.

What is even worse BA apparently had no effective system in place to manage the resulting passenger and media mayhem. Another painful lesson for both British Airways and the British Airports Authority – and indeed for any business – is that when you have scores of journalists around and no real information coming from the company, they will look for other stories, hence the rash of tales about the ‘goings on’ of various members of staff which would otherwise have not attracted any attention.

It now seems to be emerging that staff training at T5 had not been as good as it should have been and what we are seeing is the price being paid. Staff have to be fully-trained, not just in the new and unfamiliar systems but also in what to do if things go wrong.

Whenever a business is organising an event, an opening, a conference or anything else, always work with the adage in mid that ‘what can go wrong will go wrong’, Make sure your staff are trained, rehearsed and confident. Make sure the systems work, and make sure you have a plan B if things go wrong. A plan C is not a bad thing to have, either!

If you have PR support, make sure you listen to their advice about issues management, and prepare with them that crisis management plan.

You should do this as a matter of course looking at all contingencies that may arise in the normal course of business – fire, flood, epidemic, terrorist attack. You my have worked out how your business keeps going, but have you worked out how to tell your customers?

Reputation is the most valuable asset a business has, and it will take a big effort over many years for BA to get its reputation back. Make sure your company’s reputation doesn’t face a similar problem.