[TupeloKid]

I am due to travel to the UK (from Hong Kong) next March for my niece’s wedding. Unless things get sorted out at Heathrow, I will not be attending.

[cwoodward]

Lets be frank it is many years since LHR operated well or to any expected international standard. Immigration delays were long, baggage handling below par, check-in often unable to cope etc etc.
All I believe caused by poor management and and lack of available front line staff.

Fortunately I have not had the misfortune to frequent LHR for the past 2 years but it seems to have become something approaching Bedlam (a scene of uproar and confusion).

One would expect however that things would improve considerably before March. Surely? but in my opinion the only good thing about the place is still likely to be the CX 1st class lounge.

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TupeloKid

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=1227819]Lets be frank it is many years since LHR operated well or to any expected international standard. Immigration delays were long, baggage handling below par, check-in often unable to cope etc etc.[/quote]

You should stick to reporting on HKIA, which works so efficiently, you cant get in without being held prisoner for 7 days!

LHR certainly is all you say it is post pandemic, but pre pandemic, rude security staff and dated security equipment, does not make an airport fall below “expected international standard”. Yes T5 had it’s challenges, occasionally, but overall, pre pandemic, LHR coped and moved people through the system. I am certainly no fan of “JHK” – all hot air zero credibility.

Perhaps next time you go through LHR, T3 – try the reopened QF lounge. Certainly gives the T3, CX F lounge a run for it’s money…

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Frederic, FaroFlyer

[ASK1945]

[quote quote=1227849]LHR certainly is all you say it is post pandemic, but pre pandemic, rude security staff and dated security equipment, does not make an airport fall below “expected international standard”. Yes T5 had it’s challenges, occasionally, but overall, pre pandemic, LHR coped and moved people through the system.[/quote]

Martyn, I agree 100%. Pre-pandemic, I frequently passed through T5 and don’t recall anything other than the occasional minor delay through security on the way out and never a delay through Border Control on the way in. I don’t have experience of the other terminals in recent years.

I have now been through T5 five times since last December and have had no problems out or back in, although I acknowledge that others have.

PS: drop the apostrophe from “it’s” please, unless you are abbreviating “it is”. There endeth the lesson 😉

[cwoodward]

A rather pathetic reply I feel Martin and to be honest I can do without advise that is not well meant or sincere.
Seems rather to gloss over the very well known weakness at LHR and the current major problems entirely resorting to what reads as rather spiteful rudeness and deflection.

Wrong side of the bed perhaps ? as this post does not in my opinion reflect the normal high standard of your contributions

BTW I am always very welcome in the CX lounge whereas the Qantas lounges are always less so but I will try it next month

The later reference to ‘occasion difficulties’ at LHR made me chuckle’.

[AlanOrton1]

Martyn is entitled post his opinion as much as you are.

If you wish, as you frequently do, to post bombastic opinions it really is fair for others to do likewise.

You may have very little recent experience of using LHR though there are many others who actually do.

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Frederic

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=1227819]Lets be frank it is many years since LHR operated well or to any expected international standard. Immigration delays were long, baggage handling below par, check-in often unable to cope etc etc.[/quote]

I agreed with your current views about Heathrow but your post was inaccurate to suggest Heathrow has been not operating to any international standard for many years (suggesting pre pandemic).

With respect cwoodward, do not take comments about your post so personally, this is a very friendly forum and there was absolutely no “spiteful rudeness” meant or intended. I am sorry you appear offended by friendly banter.

My comment about your home base HKIA is perfectly valid, in the West we can move freely even through the current “bedlam” of Heathrow, which despite my travels, I have fortunately not yet experienced. For a visit to HKG, most people go through such hassles and expense with being held a hotel prisoner for 7 days, it is simply not worth that bedlam!

Have a wonderful evening and hope to meet you one day….

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Frederic

[cwoodward]

Martyn
I rather like friendly banter and have enjoyed many of your posts over the years. however your post appeared to tackle the man rather than the ball and you remark re HKIA seemed to a dig at the HK government rather than the excellent airport airport.

I have just realised that I have been travelling through LHR for over 50 years at least 4 or 5 times a year and thus feel rather well qualified to comment on the state of the place.
Its never been a great airport and in my opinion has got worse over the years and although the fabric has improved somewhat the service levels has declined to third world standards.
In the sixties and early seventies it was a dump with miles of dirty dark narrow corridors that always smelled of stale food and worse but with decent friendly staff.
Through the seventies the place always seemed to be suffering from one labour dispute or another.
The eighties were a little better and by the nineties things had generally improved but nowhere to the level of Frankfurt that was at the time the best airport in Europe.
By the turn of the century the airport was again in decline and the rot became worse year on year.

My last visit was in October 2019. The flight arrived early and immigration should have opened at the top of the hour -it opened 11 minutes late and with only 2 desks manned and 2 auto gates operating. By this time there were 3 wide body full scheduled flights arrived from Asia. I was fortunate having been bumped up to first by CX and off first but my colleagues in business took over an hour and a half to pass through immigration. The wait for my bags was well over an hour and this from the first flight in of the day.
I would suggest that this is a fairly normal early morning arrival experience at LHR. There can be surely no excuse for this sad level of service year on year.
Matts cartoon in todays Telegraph seems to sum up the current situation rather well.

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TupeloKid

[David1258]

I haven’t travelled to Europe since the Covid but coming week I’m going there for a business trip. I wanted to know if it necessary to stay in quarantine?

[DavidSmith2]

Depends which bit of Europe – there are around 50 countries. I am not aware that any of them currently require any quarantine but I am not confident to say, with assurance, that none of them do.

[FaroFlyer]

[postquote quote=1227855]

I think that the apostrophe is well placed. It determines ownership, and is not an abbreviation.

On an unrelated side note I have travelled though T5 a few times this year and it’s always efficient.

[ASK1945]

[quote quote=1228078]I think that the apostrophe is well placed. It determines ownership, and is not an abbreviation.[/quote]

Sorry to take us off-topic, but the apostrophe in “it’s” makes it an abrreviation for “it is”. From Dictionary.com:

– Its is a possessive form of the pronoun it, meaning belonging to it.
– It’s is a contraction of the words it is or it has. (Interestingly, we don’t really contract it was into it’s.)

With its current derivation, Martyn’s sentence reads “Yes T5 had it is challenges, occasionally” which obviously doesn’t make sense.

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TupeloKid

[drykl]

Been a Forum lurker for more than a decade (back to the tasty old days of VintageKrug!), and thought I would post my experiences of three recent airports, the worst by far being LHR T5.

Singapore 2 Aug 2022: We’re practically first off the LH Business A350, through immigration two minutes later, with priority bags 10 minutes after. My daughter glibly remarked that the immigration officers in Changi should all be transferred to help out in LHR.

Munich 1 Aug 2022: No queues at Munich (but we landed in deserted Satellite terminal).

LHR T5 30 July 2022 afternoon. Horrible Immigration queues with widebodies from Delhi and Abuja arriving at almost same time.
Three manned immigration desks to process hundreds of non-UK nationals. At 1900h, this worsened to one manned desk only.
Similarly three manned desks for UK passport holders who are unable to use e-gates.

​​​​​​Simple mathematics – 2-3 hours of long, snaking queues whichever category you are in.

My wife (who grew up in Jakarta) drily commented that she could not tell the difference between LHR T5 and a third world airport.

[MrDarwin]

I’ve flown weekly or fortnightly from/to Heathrow T5 (my home airport) for the past 6 months for travel around Europe. I’ve had one departing flight cancelled 2 weeks in advance which was easily rescheduled at no cost, and arriving flight delayed by around 45 minutes. Once I was ‘delayed’ getting through security, queuing for about 10 minutes. Other than that it’s been smooth sailing in and out. I’ve even taken to arriving at Heathrow just over an hour before my flight time. I appreciate others travelling with checked luggage have had mixed experiences, and in immigration some days are good and some days things have gone wrong but I haven’t had any bad experiences myself. Overall Heathrow seems to be coping better than other London and some other UK airports. Based on my recent and personal experiences I’d hardly call it third world.

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Tom Otley

[drykl]

[postquote quote=1228190]

Fair point, credit where due – departures from T2 and T5 in the last couple of weeks have proved very smooth. Fast track working well, no queues.

Nevertheless, enduring unpleasant memories of exhausted travellers sitting and perching on the floor in T5 whilst harried stewards rushed around handing out bottles of water after 3 hours of standing in a queue that moved at snail’s pace. (Somewhat reminiscent of my last trip on a delayed Indian Railways train).
Definitely a bad experience for families with young children, and for older people who may be less able to stand and shuffle along for that length of time.

I accept that immigration queues are not the fault of LHR airport management.

[Author]

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