Comments on: Quick Thought on London/Heathrow T5

By: lukebrown

lukebrown — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:43:30 +0000

Heathrow is the most awful airport in the developed world.
About 100 million passengers went through Heathrow, Gatwick, or Stansted through October. That’s more than half of the entire country’s air traffic.
A full 20 percent of the traffic at Gatwick is charter. That’s the largest charter airport in the UK.visit crystaltravel.co.uk for Cheap Flights

By: lukebrown

lukebrown — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:40:18 +0000

By: Poor start to Heathrow T5 opening - Musings of The Global Traveller

Poor start to Heathrow T5 opening - Musings of The Global Traveller — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:18:35 +0000

[...] of checked baggage for all departures. Further flights on day 2 have already been cancelled. As Cranky Flier suggests, if you have to fly from T5 in the next few days try to do so with carry-on luggage [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:49:16 +0000

God, Heathrow is the most awful airport in the developed world. BA and BAA should hang their heads in shame. I hate having to travel through the place and am dreading my first trip through T5.

One of the worst things about the place is the cabbies who do anything to put you off getting in their cab unless you are going all the way into town so they get a big fare. I had one swear at me once when i told him I wanted to go to BAA HQ on Bath Road.

When is a government going to stop throwing good money after bad at this place and realise it’s time for a new 21st century airport out in the Thames Estuary?

By: CF

CF — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:53:39 +0000

Simon – Good question. Where is BAA? Of course, BA will have to take the flack publicly, because that’s who the customers see, but there’s no doubt BAA has their hands in this.

As for Milan . . . well now that Alitalia has pulled down that hub, there’s plenty of room to dump bags there. Hah.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:47:59 +0000

I took part in some of the trials for LHR (they had about 10000 “passengers” over the 4 months before opening. I also have a friend who works for BA who knew this would happen. I think it’s a combination of the baggage handler issue identified here, BA senior management relying too much on crossed fingers, and BAA abusing its position over BA by not making some design changes that were needed. (As an aside, where have BAA been this week? Willie W has taken all the flack, but I have not heard a peep out of BAA who must be as much to blame.)
And sending bags to Milan makes sense if thats the best place for courier firms to get them to European destinations…
I also think that the day when they run 100% of services is months away…

By: Rory

Rory — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:22:56 +0000

Thanks CF. Although I don’t think I can face anymore Heathrow posts. Apparently they’ve packed all that luggage off to Milan. I mean, for the love of god.

By: CF

CF — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:10:58 +0000

It's true, they've been doing a fine job over at Lost Weekend. I particularly enjoyed the piece asking, "Could monkeys do a better job of running British Airways?"

By: Rory

Rory — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:06:00 +0000

It seems BA, rather than BAA, is continuing to dig itself deeper and deepeer into a hole over Heathrow. We’ve been covering this fairly indepthly over on Lost Weekend, being UK based, and BA’s PR blunders seem to know no bounds.

I’ve just read that the airline has lost the Serbian foreign ministers bags, oops, while telling him, and passengers, that it might take weeks to find them. Meanwhile, the UK transport minister is MIA.

While there is plenty of comic value to this debacle, for us in the UK it’s rapidly turning into a matter of waking up at the front of the classroom with your pants around your ankles.

By: Claire Walter

Claire Walter — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:25:52 +0000

For more info on the mexx, see my oist at http://travel-babel.blogspot.com/2008/03/heathrows-erminal.html FWIW, lct74, the ‘Telegraph’ reported that the computer system was at fault for the fiasco.