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Re: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Clairee — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:55:04 GMT

I haven't suffered the pain of T5 as yet, but i am a member of a frequent flyer forum containing a plethora of long suffering business travelers, if you are interested in some feedback from regular business travelers then this is the place to get a true picture: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=446 Hope this helps!

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Nic Niewart — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:58:17 GMT

George:(7/4/08) Tony....Tony..... Who's this Tony....it's now this McCavity frae Scotland- the man who looks uncomfortable in his own skin. The one who can't laugh at a joke without thinking it a photo op for a teenage website. Whenever there's trouble he hides, or takes the day off (we've all known people like that). This bampot is now Prime Minister.

With any luck this Tony you speak of will be hauled up in front of the serious fraud squad who were investigating claims of bribery and corruption, not in some third world bongo-bongo country, but the UK- (until he got Goldsmith -the one who looks like an unfrocked Methodist bishop to find a weasel way of stopping the inquiry).

Last week it was ruled that the thing was stopped completely illegally.

This same Goldsmith was the one who said that he thought the UK may not have a legal stance of going to war with Iraq; he went to Washington and came back severly chastised and said the UK should go to war immediately and everything was now legal. Quite what the Americans showed him has never been revealed; perhaps some photographs.

Some time later, completely unconnected, naturally you understand, and I am not making any allegations you understand, he revealed he had been having an affair.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Jacquie Bowser — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:38:37 GMT

I'd say about six or so years George. Impressive hey?!

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

George Parker — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:37:31 GMT

Mark...

That's good news... How many fucking years did that take? Can we expect the same time scale for Terminal 5?

Cheers/George

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Mark Smith — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:18:46 GMT

George - the dome is no longer empty. it has been turned into an entertainment venue with a 25,000-seat arena in the middle, encircled by a cinema, pubs, bars, restaurants, exhibition space etc around it. it's actually surprisingly good, not the disaster i expected it to be.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

George Parker — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:54:55 GMT

Nic...

Good idea. Problem is, Tony will be very, very pissed. He may even have to take time out from all his other multi million pound jobs to come after you and give you a stiff bollocking. On the other hand, why not just do everything in the Millenium Dome... Is it still empty? Scale it down a bit... You know Aussie Midget Bowling, skittle, darts and competitive drinking. Just make sure everyone coming from overseas only travels with hand luggage.

Cheers/George

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Nic Niewart — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:25:27 GMT

Which brings us round to the obvious question: should we pull out of the London Olympics NOW with good grace saying we're not up to it? Back out now before the wedding- we should never have planned to get married- rather than waiting up to the last minute, then find all the compounded problems of not finishing any project to time or budget AND all the airport nonsense. You know for sure even if they fix the baggage problem there'll be "industrial action" by the staff. You know that for sure,because it coincides with the summer holidays, and EVERY summer or winter holiday there is trouble at Heathrow.

Sydney is up and running. It is empty. It is wonderful. Everything has been built. So is Athens.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Jacquie Bowser — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:31:05 GMT

Completely agree George.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

George Parker — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:50:42 GMT

Now that I live in the US, I always arrive at Heathrow, terminal 3. Every time I get there, the place looks more beat to shit than the last time. You have to walk MILES to the gates... The moving walkways are always broken, with yellow bloody tape blocking everything. Everyone is really rude and pissed off. As I said in a previous post, the duty free shops are twice as expensive as booze and fags cost in the US. And as other posters have commented... Why is everything in Britain now so fucking dirty? Not to mention outrageously expensive. It's so sad to see crap, plastic bags and styrofoam burger boxes everywhere. Can you imagine the chaos when the Olympics happen in 2012. Un-fucking-believable. It's a shame.

Cheers/George

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Tony McGuinness — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:06:22 GMT

I fly all the time, and was really looking forward to Terminal 5. And what a disappointment.

We pulled up to one of the gates on the island which is separate from the main terminal: there was no jet bridge to meet us. The pilot apologised and said he'd phoned someone's mobile phone in the terminal and they'd promised to sort it out.

To get to the luggage hall took about six enormous escalators and a shuttle train, a ten minute journey through dull grey halls, on ghastly "nougat" marble tiles like you get in crap hotels in Greece, with no view of anything but the walls.

The luggage hall is enormous - but drab. The same grey walls and nougat floor tiles you get everywhere in Heathrow. By now I was feeling at home.

I managed to escape (with my bag) in less than half an hour but was completely underwhelmed by the architecture - and particularly the decor. It is an ugly terminal inside. I saw nothing of the magnificent glass roof (maybe you see it going the other way?) and was left thinking how much nicer it could have been: certainly Milan's new terminal buildings are in another league.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Darian Watts — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:55:48 GMT

I heard from one of the ex M&C BA team that they knew this was going to happen. Blame cut backs. That's what you get when people are more interested in saving money than looking after customers.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Tikus Besar — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:58:22 GMT

For a long time, I have observed something peculiar about the world. Airports are like their countries. They are a microcosm of their nation in miniature with all the foibles and benefits, the good and the bad. Take Singapore. Simple, impressive, super efficient.The passport control sees you within 5 minutes of landing, by the time you have spent two minutes getting the stamps (or just scanned if you have the permit), your bag is already in front of you, on the way to the taxis, in a straight line. In over 20 years of visiting the island republic, I have never waited more than 10 minutes for a bag (at Heathrow, by comparison, my record is 2 and three quarter hours)- Taxis: there will always be a couple of hundred waiting for you. But now there is the MRT, (railway)as well as the aircon bus which will take you downtown for 40 pence.

And that's how Singapore is: it's fast, efficient, big, modern, clean. A breath of fresh air.

And when you arrive on the East coast parkway and get your first view of the financial centre skyscrapers, it's a wow sight. Your meetings the next day will be all faultless. You will get your business done, quickly, inexpensively and bloody well. Your commercial will be shot, processed, graded, edited, recorded, done and dusted within 4 days for the price of the shoot sandwiches in London.

Australia is a fortess whether you arrive in Perth, Melbourne or Sydney. But it's well designed, clean and new. The people are firm but friendly. It's a very long and slow immigration queue, then the customs service is very strict about wood, food and mud. Your journey thereafter will be variable past miles of billboards, Hungry Jacks (what Burger King are called in Oz) pool centres ( places where you can buy a pool), and hundreds of traffic lights as you re-enter the city proper. The drive from Singapore doesn't have any. Not until you get off the freeway.

Indonesia started off with very good intentions, but now has very quickly become dirty and mired with booths, lockup shops, giant ashtrays, a mess of a road system. You have to frequently use "irregular payments" to get through passport and customs, unless you have paid for the meet and greet service which speeds you through both. The Japanese always use it. That's a sign of things to come. The country runs on bakshish. There are triplicates, quadruplicates of every type of form, stamp, permit, licence. There is an airport tax and an exit tax, which has to be paid in cash. No exceptions. So that's Indonesia. Charming as they shake you down.

Now what about Britain? It's a mess. It's dilapidated. There's gaffer tape to cover the holes in the carpet (outside Garfunkels T3) on the passageway to the toilets. The car park is a mess.

And expensive. You know the rest. For non-EU passport holders the queue is an hour at best, sometimes two over hours, then when you come out, your bags are STILL not there. So Britain is a mess. The roads to the airports are a mess. Unless you are a VIP and you come out of the VIP Hillingdon suite. Then your driver can pick up up- then you have to endure the same clogged M4 to town. So it's dirty, badly run, but everyone believes it to be wonderful.

T3 is where most international flights arrive now and will continue to arrive for the next forseeable future. It is pathetic. The meeting area looks and behaves like Jakarta's- hundreds of taxi service staff waving placards saying "Mr Yamamoto" There are no seats with a view of the emerging people- through the rear of the duty free shop- a disgrace and a shambles. And that's the country- it puts up with so much crap in the everyday running of things, you forget how much better other countries have it. As some of my friends say "It may not be much, but it's British".

Please add the countries you know.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

mazafer iqbal — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:32:13 GMT

Today the customer experience is the brand. Given what has happened to date there is no point BA running any marketing campaigns until and unless BA/BAA sort out the T5 debacle. And yes it is clear that T5 has not been designed for the people who are actually flying, it has been designed to benefit BAA. Most travellers, especially business travellers (BA's target market) want to arrive at the airport, get on to the plane asap, for the plane to leave on time, courteous helpful staff on board the plane, for the plane to land on time and easy to pick up the baggage and be on your way to the end destination. Where in here does a mega-shopping mall fit in?

As for the BA marketing campaign, it is perhaps time to get that in today's world the brand is the customer experience. So BA need to sort out the customer experience before they run any marketing campaigns. An interesting thought - if the customer experience is sorted out then does BA actually need to do any traditional brand advertising? Or should BA enable/encourage its customers to share their positive experiences and thus entice others to fly BA?

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Darren Davidson — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:11:03 GMT

I agree Ross. Having heard a first hand personal account from someone who had a torrid time flying in and out of T5 over the weekend, the feeling seems to be they have spent all their time and energy trying to work out how best to fleece the passenges with an array of expensive and misconceived shops. Apparently Gordon Ramsay's new T5 restaurant Plane Food epitomises the experience. The food is so bad it will never tempt first class and business class travellers away from their lounges, while also being so over-priced that budget and economy class travellers -- the very people it is aimed at -- cannot afford to eat there.

RE: Terminal 5 chaos - what now?

Ross Mc Currach — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:26:09 GMT

Now maybe the fact that I have not been on that many long haul flights makes me a bad judge, but since when has it been useful that an airport double up as a shopping centre.

I fly, regularly, and only once have I bought something from an airport shop. I had stepped on my earphones and instead of enduring 3hours of pain and tssstt zzzttt I got some new ones. To me this makes logical sense, as does a bookshop. Oh and maybe a little shop where you can buy a croissant and coffee.

This has been cause for one of the biggest arguments that I had with my ex, she deeming that now a days an airport must have a shopping centre attached (sorry to be cliché but the arguments for really were, what else can you do in an airport whilst you wait but shop) but I think that the really important word there is attached. If BAA had spent as much time conceiving the actual airport (the bit that's used for travel) as the "shopping experience" this whole debacle would not be happening.

And, food for thought, if BAA had done the best job in the world at creating a world class airport would there even be need for shops.Should an airport really become a destination and not a port of entry to another destination.