[Delsurrey]

antipodes
Your boarding card is your invitation and if you are in First with BA you are entitled to use the Concorde Lounge.

[VintageKrug]

There is no “Concorde Lounge” at T5.

[bobbd2011]

I think it’s fairly obvious what was meant by Delsurrey, don’t you VintageKrug?

[VintageKrug]

Obvious, but not accurate.

[bobbd2011]

In that case you’ll be amending your post at 08.38 then? BA refers to its first class as British Airways First, not BA First Class.

Obvious, but not accurate.

[esselle]

It is not something I spend much time thinking about, but I do sometimes wonder what VK does, beyond writing comments on this site.

With all these postings, there can be little time left in the day for anything else.

[BlackTower]

Back to the subject I am bored with the massive U turn to access the non Concorde Room lounges. If you are a regular traveller you know what poor value duty free shops are and would sooner not walk through them.

How about a bridge to the lounges? £500k? Any Civil Engineers please feel free to give a better cost estimate. Rude Engineers need not apply……

[travelworld]

The fact that lounges are “by invitation only” is made clear in airport terminals all over the world. I’m puzzled why antipodes didn’t go to the lounge entrance and ask if he could be let in. He would have been had he shown his boarding pass.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

I last used T5 last month.

In the same month, I used MUC and ZRH, which deliver a far better experience for me.

I’d rate Cairo T3 as a better user experience than T5, although the lounges aren’t as good (but still not bad.)

[Bunnahabhain]

Within the UK, admittedly not the most challenging of competition, I would rate T5 well above any other. I haven’t used T4 for some time so can’t comment on its recent refurbishment. T3 is chaos at security and the old design of mile-long piers to gates with little or no facilities, T1 the same on the latter front with the added cowshed for domestic pax to pass through for mugshot reconciliation – at T5 this is done as part of the gate boarding. On which note, did anything more ever come of the biometric fingerprint reconciliation they built in? I thought it actually worked well on the day I was at the trial compared with the time at each end to capture then visually reconcile the pic, but the human rights police had it banned.

LCY does what it says on the tin I guess.

It might be “your London airport” but in my case that’s a matter of personal taste. North terminal is acceptable but south is just a dump with the worst of everything, an army of local youths in yellow sweat shirts shouting the 100ml rules as if they were trying to flog you the poly bags in a market stall. Makes the drivers on megabus look positively customer friendly

If LTN’s boarding sheds were used for animals or cargo they would be classed as cruel.

STN – where’s that again?

MAN T3 – Hmmm, ok if not delayed, trouble up north otherwise.

BHX T2 nee Eurohub is bearable, haven’t used the new communal departures yet.

All things relative, hope to see the regulars in the 5 Tuns or Crown Rivers.

[ItsTheHud]

My biggest frustration regarding T5 is the circuitous route you are forced to take to reach the lounges (unless you are eligable to access the Concorde Lounge / Room immediately after passing through security). The walk to the other lounges is a 5-minute loop to reach an area a few paces away from where you started – and it just comes across as a cynical BAA ploy to get as much footfall as possible past the shops. Very annoying

[VintageKrug]

It is a cynical BAA ploy, but then without people buying things in their shops, and the astronomical rents BAA can charge as a consequence. BAA would no doubt charge even more for landing fees and that would affect our ticket prices as passengers.

On the point of the journey to the lounges, it’s really only 30 seconds to the Galleries Lounge from North Security, and from South Security to the First and Galleries Lounges takes exactly 2m 37secs (if you go down the escalator in Harrods). I know because I have timed it!

Though it is a hassle with all the escalators, I would actually struggle to name an airport with a shorter time from clearing security to being in the lounge, so one must retain a sense of proportion about it all.

And let’s be honest, many people do like a little browse through the shops when they fly, especially on leisure trips.

[LPPSKrisflyer]

I can think of plenty of airports with a shorter walk to the lounge from security and less hassled by the presence of shops than T5, try SIN in all terminals, HKG, KUL, BNE, MUC and plenty more. The journey from security to the lounge in T5 unless you can access the Concorde Room is tedious and so obviously a ploy that I don’t even look at the shops. After all, I’m there to catch a plane.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Terminals with cynical ploys that favour the supply side over the demand side will not get my vote as being best of breed.

I absolutely do not buy into the apologist reasoning about fare costs, the market sets a level and above that pax numbers will be affected.

It is a disgrace that British Airways allows the operator of their dedicated terminal to inconvenience premium passengers in this way. A disgrace.

There are other issues with T5, such as the late publishing of gates and some less than ideal gates (as mentioned by other posters on other threads), as well as the tortuous flight connections process when connecting from abroad.

Just because it is better than the other terminals at LHR, is not an arbiter of its place in the world.

PPSKrisflyer makes a very good point.

So what do you find ‘interesting’ about my analysis of T5 as a slightly under par experience for a modern terminal, balanced by some of the best premium lounges in the world?

I think it is a fair assessment.

[JordanD]

Enough with the BA/BAA bashing.

Cynical ploys in single-operator terminals? Like the IB or AF lounges are easy to get to in T4 at MAD or T2 in CDG. Even in multi-operator terminals, the lounges aren’t always right by the door of security.

Does it hurt you to walk a little further? No. Is the world going to end, because you have to walk a little further? No. Does it lower the “premium” experience to walk a little further? No.

Next you’ll want to be carried on a gold chair from the lounge to the gate …

[Author]

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