Comments on: Heathrow Terminal 5 – Another rant about respecting conventions

By: keira

keira — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:05:14 +0000

who was it that said istanbul was on the european side?? I think not!! you drive in to the old part ( sultanahmet) along the side of the bosporus fron the airport and at no time do you cross via a bridge on to the european side!!

By: jim

jim — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:36:42 +0000

I liked this article a lot. I used to travel a lot more than I do now but would hate when something like this happens. Respecting conventions that have been in place for a long time is important but as you said, there should have been plenty of ways to let you know you needed more time.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:32:07 +0000

Hiu there it’s been an absolute disgrace, I know some top long service people in BA and they’ve basically slashed there training budget and left the Customer Service people out to dry.

By: Suw

Suw — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:06:57 +0000

It’s strange. Kevin and I have always (even before we met each other) arrived at the airport 3 hours ahead of time for trans-Atlantic or other long-haul flights, and 2.5 hours ahead for European flights, even when we’ve checked in online. To me, the convention is 3 hours, not 2 or less.

Maybe that come from the couple of years I spent living in Hounslow. Commuting home on the Piccadilly line provided me with ample examples of people who had not left enough time to get to Heathrow. The result was usually tears or swearing. But mostly I think it comes from having had so many flights where 3 hours is stated on thte tickets. Like you, I no longer check how long ahead of time I should check in – I just assume 3 hours. Of course, in Geneva this meant that I arrived 1 hour too early, and they laughed at me and told me to go away and come back later.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter – the lack of communication is inexcusable.

And btw, T5 doesn’t have any shops, according to BA’s in-flight magazine. It has shopportunities. Oh, how I wish I was kidding.

By: Rekha

Rekha — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:47:10 +0000

Thank you for giving me the language for a common gripe of mine. “Respecting conventions” is a very useful phrase. In some situations, it’s hard not to feel that a coroporate or government system has resorted to not respecting conventions in order to extract an additional fee, or to reduce the field of eligibles for a particular service.

By: quendi

quendi — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:31:10 +0000

BTW, if you want to do nitpicking: technically the Istanbul airport lies on the european side of the city :-P

By: Les

Les — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:49:02 +0000

Hi Leisa,

I’ve been done by the same thing flying from Heathrow T4, and from City airport in the past.

Just one word about the extra arrival time:

Retail!

The whole of T5 has been designed to make sure you spend as much time ogling expensive ‘duty free’ items as possible. They’ll tell you it’s about security, but it’s really about making T5 into the biggest shopping mall in the UK.