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Heathrow is not in terminal decline although judging by the media coverage of the woes at Terminal Five you could be forgiven for thinking that the airport was being buried under a mountain of luggage.
A software problem in the baggage system turned the terminal from a showcase of technology into a symbol of mayhem.
To make matters worse the problems were not confined to Heathrow. We live in an increasingly dependent world and problems at one transport hub will have a knock-on effect elsewhere.
But the most important lesson to be learned from Heathrow's experience is that regardless of how impressive the building or how advanced the technology, no system can be taken for granted until it has been fully tried and tested.
To err is human as is the desire to be over-optimistic about the benefits of technology before it has a chance to prove itself.
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