[Binman62]

What is remarkable about T 5 is that it works at all given who owns it. It is good, it would be hard to argue with that however it is not Changi, HKG or ICN.

In Europe we put up with poor design and shopping malls and there is little in the way of design or wow factor. T5 goes some way to address this but if we are honest the cost cutting in the build screams at you….the transit train, the ludicrous jetty lengths in B and the inability to move around airside and the 3 buildings with ease.
There is also still way too much coaching.

Verdict….good but could do much better.

[VintageKrug]

Have you been to a recently bilt shopping mall; pretty impressive here in London at Stratford, Shepherd’s Bush and elsewhere.

Back on to LHR. Luckily, BA is also very likely to be able to take advantage of T2; without the encumbrance of the JSA this is becoming increasingly more likely thanks to the purchase of bmi which returned access to T1 to BA.

The key barrier of moving out of T3 is the attempt to align terminals by alliance, but basing the midhaul/oil routes at T2 makes sense especially now BA’s closest oneworld partner Iberia is over in T5 for (many/all?) routes.

With both terminal allocations and alliances relatively fluid right now, we live in interesting times!

[BeckyBoop]

Binman, it’s a bit unfair to compare LHR and T5 to SIN HKG and ICN. They don’t have the same volumes of people going through as LHR. Nowhere near in fact, plus LHR has many restrictions in terms of expansion as well as a no pro aviation govt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World’s_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic

Also LHR and T5 in recent years have won many awards

http://mediacentre.heathrowairport.com/Press-releases/Hub-airport-wins-at-World-Airport-Awards-125.aspx

http://www.heathrowairport.com/about-us/facts-and-figures/our-performance/

You also forget that T5 was designed by Fosters + Partners, the same people you done HKG!

[Binman62]

I would acknowledge that the building is well designed but cuts were made to save money andnthenresult was a mishmash. The train operates in one direction only due costs cuts, the B trminal is smallerbthanit should have been and the jettiesbarebimplausibly long…to save money.

It is also quite reasonable to compare the worlds busiest Hub with airports elsewhere. Those airports are all located in dynamic hugely successful countries with broth rates that the UK can only dream of.

SIN is already planning for 2030 as is HKG with plans for a 3rd runway. In the time it took to discuss T5 KUL ICN HKG were all planned built and made operational. HKG required the levelling of a mountain and building of bridges and high speed rail.

KIX is built where once there was just the sea and with it the infrastructure to support it..

T5 is splendid in many respects but it is already full and it’s operations become disrupted whenever there is the slightest restriction on the airfield.This may include high winds, thunder, aircraft incidents delays en route weather, changes to the Atlantic track..etc etc etc.

It may be the best Termnal in Europe but without a new purpose built,multi runway,24 hour airport this country will decline and very soon one of our few successful industries will wither.

[VintageKrug]

…though even I am not sure about this latest Britannia Airport suggestion, rather more Boris Island than Thames Hub….

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/the-mothership-lands-a-striking-new-design-for-airport-which-could-solve-crisis-8130244.html

[BeckyBoop]

Binman, how do you feel about the idea of the Thames Hub!!!

http://www.halcrow.com/thames-hub/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Hub

You really find the jetties too long?

[IanFromHKG]

Becky, you wrote: “Binman, it’s a bit unfair to compare LHR and T5 to SIN HKG and ICN. They don’t have the same volumes of people going through as LHR”

Well, actually you are mixing up two different things. This discussion is about T5. While it might not be fair to compare multi-terminal LHR with single-terminal or two-terminal airports like HKG and SIN, I think it is perfectly fair to compare T5 (annual traffic 26.3 million pax last year) with HKG (just under 23m last year) or even SIN (20.5m last year), particularly since in the case of HKG it also has huge amounts of cargo passing through which cause their own logistical problems (HKG is the world’s busiest cargo airport, with nearly three times as much cargo per annum as the whole of Heathrow)

Clearly, opinion is divided. Even at home – my wife loves T5, whereas I dislike it for several of the reasons quoted by other posters (long walk to lounges, late boarding gate announcements, rubbish satellite system) plus, I might add, the expectation that most passengers with bags have to use both self-check-in and manned check-in (grrrr) or, for those lucky few such as myself who are able to use FIRST check-in, the fact that it isn’t in prime position but is tucked away at one end of the terminal so you have to walk further to get to security.

The lounges are great, the shopping (if that is your thing – it isn’t mine), but the layout is terrible. I also don’t think it is terribly well signposted (try doing a VAT refund if you don’t know exactly where to go, and you will see what I mean).

[VintageKrug]

I really can’t understand the allegation of a “long walk to the lounges”.

Even when not able to use the white door, it takes about 4m 30s to get from South Security to the First Lounge; I timed it as am often on a tight schedule.

I have found it quicker, on balance, to go through the escalator within the Harrods store than the other one.

Plenty of other airports take considerably longer to get from security to the lounge, and curbside to F check in is a minimal stagger, even for the most inebriated.

The late boarding gate announcements are a factor in LHR due to the need to maximise utilisation of saturated gates; whereas in the US they plan gates alongside slot times (making predictions possible well in advance) this is not the case at LHR at present. Then there is also the operators interest in keeping you shopping to the last possible moment…

SHops are super, layout is a bit of a mish-mash (again a function of the relatively small site necessitating facilities stacked on top of each other.

I agree the satellite system is poor, and its failings will become even more evident as it is extended to T5D and beyond.

I’m hopeful that something will shortly be done to make the transition between F check-in/ Fast Track Security and Concorde Room more seamless. I wish they’d hire just one person – like a Hotel doorman – who would manage check-in and greet regulars.

[IanFromHKG]

In absolute terms, VK, I agree with you. BUT I find it irksome that the lounges are so proximate as the crow flies but they force you to start in the wrong direction, go down, retrace your steps on a different level, carry on to the end of the building, and go back up to the level you started on. It would not have been hard to build a gallery allowing passengers to bypass this roundabout route. I think it is that routing, as much as the distance, which annoys people (including me). The same goes for putting the check-in at one end of the terminal, as far away from security as they could put it, whereas if I were designing the place they would have been as close as possible so their most valued passengers had the shortest and easiest route.

On gate announcements – I truly don’t know what the operational considerations about T5 are, but I cannot help thinking that they will already have identified the aircraft they are going to use for a particular flight at least a couple of hours before departure. Unless turn-around times at T5 are one helluva lot faster than I suspect, that should make it possible to determine the gate at least an hour or more before time, instead of “just in time to make you run especially if you missed the start of the announcement by five minutes”. It is disruptive and annoying to have that uncertainty. I have myself been caught this way, despite checking the boards every five minutes (which is hardly conducive to relaxation), to see that my first indication of the boarding gate is when it is already on Final Call (!)

[HedgeFundFlyer]

VK – for someone who normally talks a lot of sense, I struggle to understand where you are coming from on the idea that BA will get to use T2. It is for the Star Alliance and, as things stand, will not be big enough (in its first phase) to accomodate all of those airlines. How BA will muscle in on the act is therefore far from clear.

I gather BA have set all of their hopes on enough of T3 Star operations being vacated into T2 to allow BA to move its T1 operations to T3. BA do not want to be split across 3 terminals. It is a logistical nightmare and very costly (think 3 sets of lounges and check-in and ground ops), to say nothing of transitting people and bags.

If BA are, in their enlarged form, settled in T5 and T3 and those facilities are exlcusively for them and OW partners, they will be happy.

Bring on T5D…..I gather plans are now being finalised for removal of the fuel farm.

[VintageKrug]

Interesting news about the fuel farm; it’s about time it was moved.

The T2 access comes courtesy of the former bmi interest in the terminal; I think BA is keen to get out of the Third World hellhole that is T3.

With Iberia largely (completely?) at T5 now, Qantas tie ups not long for this world that only leaves Finnair (very few flights) and American (rather more, but still quite distant from BA despite the JV and also cosying up Emirates) at T3, and the connectivity between T2 and T3 will be much better in future such that proximity (and airside transfers) will be less of an issue than it was in the past.

[superchris]

All sounds beautiful, until they partner with QR of course…

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2200307/BA-looks-Qatar-tie-Qantas-finds-new-partner.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[Bruce98]

T5 is an average modern terminal, which looks better than average because of the poor terminals near it.

Personal opinion, the refurbished T4 is a better user experience in many ways than T5.

[IanFromHKG]

VintageKrug – 13/09/2012 10:54 GMT : With Iberia largely (completely?) at T5 now, Qantas tie ups not long for this world that only leaves Finnair (very few flights) and American (rather more, but still quite distant from BA despite the JV and also cosying up Emirates) at T3

Sorry VK, I am not intentionally picking on you this week, but you are in error again. Cathay are at T3 (admittedly only four flights a day, but still significant enough to operate two lounges, and strategically important because of their excellent links into China and across Asia)

[KeaneJohn]

I fly to Prague faily often so tend to use terminal 3 more than i do terminal 5, I was pretty disappointed when that move happened as I do like T5.

I was one of the people to fly through T5 on its opening day. Remember it well. Arriving at 11am for the flight to Prague at 1440. Remember the tv crews in the check in area for the launch. Once airside the odd flight cancellation and delay .. it was only later that day in Prague that we found out about the problems. We didn’t travel with bags and indeed it took several weeks to get them back.

I do have a couple of flights through T5 between now and the end of the year and also going through LGW North next week for the first time in 10 years so looking forward to seeing how that has changed.

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