I had the misfortune to travel, this week, via the new Heathrow Terminal 5. I assumed i would be ok since the problems i had heard about seemed to relate to baggage handling, and i had carry-on luggage only. i was wrong. T5 supposedly cost 4.3 billion sterling. it is extraordinary that such an investment could have resulted in such a disorganised mess. I’m willing to be charitable about teething problems with baggage systems, staff unfamiliarity with systems etc, but what is inexcusable is the flawed design.
i have never had to walk so far within one building. at one point i was staring at the departure board 30 minutes before my departure time, which told me to wait in lounge. the next minute i’m told to go to gate B something. signage is awful, but eventually i discover the direction to walk in. i get to a sign which says, please allow 15 minutes to reach B gates. I then have to get a transit. sure enough i arrive at the B gates 15 minutes after being told to go there, only to find another sign saying to allow 10 minutes to walk to my actual gate, B6 or whatever. so that’s 25 minutes journey time, 30 minutes prior to departure. and the gate, or course, closes 10 minutes prior. luckily (inevitably) the flight is delayed.
on the return journey it takes an age to get through passport control. several hundred people mill about unsure of where to go. there are dozens of staff ushering people around, one line of desks checking passports and a separate queue for the new-fangled iris-scanner. in the (plenty of) time i had, i timed people going through the iris scanner, and those going through the human passport control. the averages were 15 seconds and 3 seconds respectively. so the only reason to choose the iris route is because fewer people do so.
but what is infuriating are the small details. there are signs saying things like “the quickest route to departures is via the lifts”. so you go to the lifts, which have doors on both sides, only to find that only the doors on the other side open. once you get in, there are three raised buttons for the respective floors. only when you go to press one you discover that they aren’t buttons at all, just indicators. i stood there watching person after person pressing them and tutting.
frankly, it’s a £4.3 billion disaster. i would never travel out of there again unless i absolutely couldn’t help it. it’s only redeeming factor is that it looks quite nice at night.
