Monday February 23, 2009

Eight out of ten for Heathrow's T5

It was with some trepidation that we found out we were flying to Rome from Heathrow's T5. We parked in the T5 long stay car park that was closer to T1/T2/T3 than T5 but the bus did not take us long to wizz us to T5. As you walk in it has an amazing feeling of space. The superstructure is visible and adds volumes to the interior appearance. We were unable to check in as we arrived being to early - I don't know why they do that. So we had a coffee in one of the cafe's which was not badly priced. I would say there is not much in this part of the airport and not many seats. Clearly it is up to the traveler to do a decent job of his timing or face the consequences. Eventually we checked in and went through to the gate. Here there were more seats and shops etc to visit. The interior is quite nicely finished unlike other BAA airports that look so down at heel the day after being built. My only critisism is that the toilets don't have many toilets and here the interior finish was already looking tired.

The shock was when get to the gate we ended up going on a bus to the plane! Have they not built enough gates for BA? You could see an satellite terminal in the same design being built and there is a secondary one already in place. I hope the use of a bus is only until they finish off the building works.

On the way back after the usual Heathrow stacking delays we were told the plane's Aux engine was not working so there would be a delay in getting to the stand. But we were then told after another delay a tracking device had not worked adding to the original delay. It is funny BA never complains when things go wrong at Heathrow. Virgin usually have a good go at the standards of service when problems occur.

While waiting the building in the dark seems like a large electric filament bulb the filament being the superstructure visible from the outside through the glass envelope. Going through Passport control was fine - after a long walk with no moving walkways from the gate. At baggage pickup - a usual Heathrow disaster the problem was ours as we waited by reclaim eight and should have been at ten. When after ten minutes we walked to ten our bags were there. The courtesy bus arrived minutes after we got the its stop and soon had us back to our car.