Paul Coby, the chief information officer at British Airways has made a public apology for the disruption caused at the opening of Heathrow´s Terminal 5 (T5), earlier this year.

Speaking at the Forrester IT Forum in Lisbon, Coby directly acknowledged the bad publicity caused by the cancellation of more than 500 flights and the misplacement of thousands of passenger bags.

"We do make mistakes. T5 is probably at the front of all your minds, and I would just like to say that I am very sorry. " said Coby.

Coby admitted that BA had done "serious damage" to its reputation, but added that the company had learned from the troubled launch.

The CIO said that BA had made a mistake in overhyping the build-up to the event, and had responded by downplaying subsequent announcements, such as last week´s addition of 30 long-haul flights to the terminal´s activities.

He added that the company would renew its concentration on staff training for future projects.

"When you launch a project of the scale of T5, focus on people training," he said. "Do as much training and formalisation as you think you might need, and then triple it."