LONDON BRIEFING:IF ONLY Willie Walsh could have acted with such ruthless efficiency a fortnight ago. In unceremoniously dumping the two senior executives responsible for the Terminal 5 shambles, the British Airways boss may well be hoping to draw a line under what has been one of the most damaging episodes in the company's history.
But Walsh, who has accepted "full responsibility" for the debacle, is not off the hook yet.
Some heads clearly had to roll over the disastrous launch of the new £4.3 billion Heathrow terminal - and the two who paid the price with their jobs yesterday were pretty obvious candidates.
Gareth Kirkwood was the airline's director of operations and it was he who appeared in front of the television cameras as the disaster unfolded on day one.
His performance at T5 that day came to symbolise the debacle - after reading from a spectacularly uninformative prepared statement, he turned his back and fled, accompanied by a minder.
Thus began the PR disaster. Also departing is David Noyes, BA's director of customer services. The reasons for his departure need no explanation.
Until T5, Kirkwood and Noyes, both 20-year BA veterans, had been considered rising stars under the Walsh regime. But the furore over the botched launch of the airline's new Heathrow hub has refused to die down.
Despite assurances from BA, the so-called "teething problems" have yet to be resolved - bags are still being lost and flights are still being delayed and cancelled.
Passengers flying out of the terminal in recent days report a catalogue of failings, from lack of information posted on departure boards, to lifts out of order and an absence of customer service booths. One newspaper reporter even managed to carry a Swiss army knife with a three-inch blade through security.
Admittedly, lifts and security are the responsibility of airport operator BAA, but all passengers care about is whether or not they are working. And last week the airline lost the hand luggage of a passenger who died on a flight from Hong Kong, luggage that contained his mobile phone and address book, and without which grieving relatives have been unable to arrange a funeral.
Walsh, who appeared in front of the cameras on day two of the T5 disaster, insisted from the outset that while he took full responsibility for the affair - "the buck stops with me" - he would not resign.
But, with time running out ahead of the great summer getaway, the BA boss is coming under increasing pressure from all sides. He and BA chairman Martin Broughton have a series of meetings with key shareholders this week and the T5 debacle will be top of the agenda, swiftly followed by the impact of the record oil price on the group and, the prospects of a pilots' strike.
Next month he will be subjected to a grilling by MPs from the transport select committee, bringing more negative publicity to a company whose reputation has already been irretrievably damaged.
Also snapping at his heels are the airline rivals who had been planning to move into the space vacated by BA at Terminal 4.
With the full move of BA's operations into T5 now delayed until October, expansion plans have been thrown into disarray.
BA plans to combine the roles of operations and customer services into one new post, and plans to appoint a new chief operations officer. Until that role is filled, however, Walsh will take direct responsibility for the new terminal. If he fails to find a swift solution, his head will almost certainly be the next to roll.
Fiona Walsh writes for the Guardiannewspaper in London
