LONDON, March 31: British Airways on Monday cancelled dozens more flights from its new flagship terminal at London Heathrow amid mounting anger over the disruption and a mountain of stranded luggage.

Five days after Terminal Five opened, ministers criticised anger at the chaos which has engulfed the multi-billion pound facility, while it also emerged that the turmoil had triggered a diplomatic incident.

“It is extremely regrettable to say the least that passengers using T5 have had to suffer an unacceptably poor travel experience,” Aviation Minister Jim Fitzpatrick told the House of Commons.

British Airways — the only airline using the new terminal — cancelled another 54 flights on Monday after a nightmare weekend, while a spokesman said another 50 flights will be cancelled on Tuesday.

“We continue to work towards increasing the number of services we are operating to and from Terminal 5 in the days ahead,” he said.

Terminal Five has been blighted by logistical troubles ever since it opened to much fanfare on Thursday, with problems compounded by a major computer glitch in the luggage handling system.

The luggage backlog has so far grown to 28,000 bags, and could take up to a week to return them to owners, the minister said. Earlier BA said there were 15,000, while the BBC published photos of the bags piled on top of each other.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh was forced to make his second apology in three days on Sunday, as the airline scrapped dozens of flights over

the weekend.

On Monday morning the atmosphere in the terminal — where huge queues built up last week and people were forced to sleep on the floor because of cancelled flights -- was calm, according to witnesses.

“We've had absolutely no problems this morning, it all seems to be running very smoothly,” said Dawn Reece, who came to the airport to see her daughter off on a gap year in Japan.

But later in the day Foreign Secretary David Miliband reported that one of his European Union counterparts had been caught up in the chaos while en route to a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Slovenia.

“He arrived merely to transit, but his bags are nowhere to be seen and it was whispered that it might take weeks,” he wrote on his blog on the Foreign Office website.

“He asked me to pass on a message to BA/BAA: for goodness sake get your act together,” he added, referring to British Airways and the British Airports Authority, which runs Heathrow.

He gave no indication of which of his 26 EU counterparts was involved.

The spacious facility was meant to be a jewel in the crown of the airports operator and British Airways.

Business leaders called the situation a public relations disaster for BA, London and Britain.

T5, which was unveiled earlier this month by Queen Elizabeth II, was designed to handle 30 million passengers a year and alleviate notorious overcrowding at the world's busiest international air hub.—AFP