3 LHR terminals in worst rated UK airports

A recent study by a much respected publication in the UK list the best and worst airports based on real passenger feelings.

LHR appears to have been judged on the each terminal and then managed to get 3 of the 5 bottom places. This includes T4 where millions have been lavished. T1/3 are perhaps not surprising entries both of which are embarrassing dumps.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-23738060

Here’s a link to the report itself (although you might need to be a member to see the whole thing. It’s a bargain at £7 a month and they do a lot of travel-related reports) http://www.which.co.uk/news/2013/08/which-reveals-the-best-and-worst-uk-airports-330453/?intcmp=HP.hero.large.1.wcunews.bestandworstairports.aug17. It’s based on reports from 11,500 members.

The worst is Luton followed by T1 and then T3. Southend was top. Humberside was next.

On Sunday 29 September I had unarguably the worst terminal experience of many years of airline travel – excluding weather delays. And it was LHR T3. This is without a doubt the worst international terminal in the world – if there can be a worse one I would like to hear about it. CDG T2 comes close but nothing can be this bad. There was a 50m queue just to get to the boarding pass check. I queue jumped. Inside the snail’s pace just to get to a security belt was as bad as ever but I made it in a reasonable 20 mins. So far, so T3. Then, on my belt, 6 pieces of baggage in a row were taken off for hand searching.

Mine was fifth. A lone security person then slowly, meticulously took the first bag apart – belonging to a confused 80 year old pensioner. It took 10 minutes with explosive residue swipes on every article. Same for the next one – another 10 minutes. By this time my flight for which I had been in plenty of time, was closing. After 30 minutes they finished the third bag. Only then apologetically to the others waiting did I interject and point out that I was about to miss my flight and the supervisor took my bag aside. He scanned it and said that there was nothing wrong with it. Gave it back to me and I was off. Almost 40 minutes waiting for bag screening for a bag that did not need screening.

When will someone in BAA do something about this shocking place. If they would reduce the gigantic shopping mall by 10% they could fit in another dozen security lanes but of course they do not care about that.

I am now at the stage where I will no longer fly on an airline that uses T3.

I flew out of T3 on the evening of the 20 September. The place was rammed, the queue for security was some 150-200 metres long. Thankfully we had fast track, so got through in minutes. However when we arrived back on the 27th and from plane, baggage collection through customs took 30 minutes.

I thought according to Skytrax and the BA billboards, Terminal 5 was the best in the world.