My UK base in west London is a 25 minutes drive to Heathrow, so I fly in and out of there on average of 20 times per year or so. Rare is the time when it is not a shambolic nightmare of disorganization and what Adriana Lukas calls “security theatre”.

As a commenter on my blog noted recently, that BAA is allowed a monopoly on Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted is a scandal.

Terminal 5 should definitely improve service, bbuuuttt only if they staff it to capacity. In reading the various articles on the problems at Heathrow it appears that BAA not staffing support services is a bigger problem than the facility itself. Also, what’s really tragic about this is that this is the problem that can absolutely be solved without spending billions of taxpayer Pounds!

Given the taxes that every airline passenger pays when we buy a ticket, and what airlines pay when they takeoff and land, it is an absolute requirement of the British government to hold accountable Heathrow authorities for providing an acceptable level of service, which they are not currently doing.

i’m sure you know that terminal 5 is supposed to improve service- – one can only assume that once it’s open and ready for traffic, that will enable time to be spent on improving the other terminals.

I’d much rather that they stay open and transit passengers, albeit slowly than any other way.

and by the way – i live in the UK, and travel through Heathrow often enough – i’ve been held in queues lots longer at other airports (typically American) – as with anything, it’s just about learning how to game the system.

-james