two thoughts after living in the UK for a little while:
1. I have learned to take the noon or later LHR-IAD or LHR-ORD flights, instead of the 8am or 10am flights. You cannot get to LHR early enough with any reasonable train from outside London (and I don't even try to get there more than 1.5hr in advance,unless subjecting yourself to a neck numbing early slow train ride, for a huge sum of ££), and you will otherwise have to stay in an extortionate LHR hotel overnight (with £4 hotel bus ride, thank you).
Agree. But, off topic, if you do stay in one of the Bath road hotels there is no need to take the extortionate Hoppa any longer....city buses going to heathrow from a bath rd pickup are FREE! There is a thread on this somewhere. Also from
LHR Central Bus station to bath road is free...just say bath road hotel to driver when you board
2. <snip>
So while the SSSS when boarding at LHR may seem a little extreme to you, I think that if there's anywhere I'd want it to be used, it's on flights from the UK. I'm not saying there aren't things that could be improved -- many things about LHR and BAA are outright ridiculous. I have spoken to the BAA security supervisors several times about some silly policies at T3, and received pretty unsatisfactory answers. But regardless of that, when it comes to real security procedures, the UK does have a problem and I think these gate checks are necessary (but need to be done correctly).
My complaint is not the screening in general but how ALL "late" (although not really late as in doors are about to close) arrivals were subject to screening