Tuesday 19 August 2008

Heathrow T5

'Terminal 5 is working' run British Airways' new ads, championing the success of Heathrow's Terminal 5 after some terrible launch problems. Today I experienced T5 for the first time. As the glass elevators whisked us up from The Heathrow Express to Departures and I entered the building, I was impressed. Whatever the pessimists have to say about the poor impression the UK's airports give to visitors entering the country, T5 is a huge improvement on the rest of Heathrow. Great design, loads of glass, feels very fresh - if you can forget you are standing in a shopping mall. It was all going so well....
...until we came to Gate 10a and then the 21st Century experience ceased as a bus drew up to take us from terminal to aircraft. One fellow traveller quipped, 'We're taking the bus to Amsterdam?!'.

I guess this about capacity problems rather than shortcomings of the new Terminal, but a shame not to have to the experience I was anticipating.

But I guess I'd have to agree with BA, it is working (kind of).

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