bealine

Apart from the trouble affecting the first few days, that was never an issue in T5.

Mattyb44

I dont tweet, but have done so now with this image (hope the owner of the image is OK with this). It will not achieve anything, but it may prepare others for the possible delays at T5.

headingwest

Looks like a typical day at Stansted... But Fast Track?...Heathrow?

NickB

Even if this is the case, to me this screams major design flaw: designing systems in a terminal on the assumption that baggage policies (or, for that matter, other policies) are set in stone and will not vary for the rest of the lifetime of the terminal strikes me as a patently flawed design. Good design implies ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

IMO, this is a very poor excuse. Many airlines around the world with hand baggage policies comparable to BA manage to send flights on time. Now, it may well be that BA processes are too poor and inefficient to cope. But, if that is so, then the problem is with the processes themselves.

layz

When it's so easy to make feedback I think it makes sense to use it even if you think they ignore it. I encourage people to use the feedback iPads in the lounges for the same reason.

I've been lucky recently and most times have been able to press the happy or slightly happy smiley.

When things have been really bad I've sent an email to customer relations for Heathrow Rewards (based on the fact HAL relies of retail revenue) on my iPhone while waiting in line detailing which lane I'm in, what is holding the line up, etc. I then mention how the hold up has mean I had no time to do the shopping I was wanting to do. Reduced takings in the shops is something that'd make HAL take notice.

If you're not a Heathrow Rewards member or have spent so little at Heathrow that they'd not care then an email to their general customer relations department while waiting in the queue may be a good idea, either than or a Tweet including both LHR and BA
CWS convinced me to go HBO as much as possible as it does save a lot of time for frequent travellers. However I do believe a lot of people are happy to drop their bags off and only don't do so as they'd like to save a few quid (even before the HBO fare some people used to LCCs may have just assumed there was a bag charge).

If I had no lounge access and had to occupy myself in the public areas of the airport I wouldn't like to be hand baggage only. The lounge gives you somewhere safe to leave them, no such facility exists for those without lounge access. If you're travelling alone do you really want to take your luggage to the toilet with you or walk around the shops with it or next to you on the floor in a restaurant?

layz

You should post a link to the tweet so others can retweet it.

Crampedin13A

Could not agree more. Last time through the whole thing came to a halt. Even the staff member at the front looked around at the guy doing the scanning. He just laughed,rubbed his eyes, said he was tired and turned away from the x-ray machine for a couple of minutes while everybody just stood there.

corporate-wage-slave

It's a pity that T5 can close down like LCY for a few weekends coming up, from lunchtime Saturday through to lunchtime Sunday. The overnight work (which is shown by the white boards in the photo above, which has moved Fast Track northwards by 5 - 10 metres) can only take place between 23 hrs and 4 hrs, and that just stretches it out. Apparently we will all love the new South Fast Track FCC when it is complete, and will reduce the pressure on North somewhat, but it's an omelette/egg break in the mean time. It wasn't this bad yesterday afternoon.

Nimrod1965

Er, this is me most of the time. In fact, this is me in an hour or so, off to Brussels this afternoon with my HBO wheely case. I don't do shopping so will be sat in Espresso with a book. Not for long though, this time next week will make the dizzy heights (for me) of Silver BAEC so will be in the lounges next year.

Mattyb44

Could this be the link?

https://twitter.com/mattybennion/sta...210050/photo/1

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12B411 Safari/600.1.4)

There was a widespread failure to load bags within the last week! It happens a couple of times a year at least.

And on Sunday, whilst ostensibly a normal day, I got my bags 50 mins after on stand. This isn't an outlier IMO, par for the course.

Don't underestimate the negative hold baggage perception BA/LHR has out there (whether real or perceived).

zappingtv

I never see people working so slow like in London Heathrow ... not even in America they are so slow. I hate it everytime there. And the Fasttrack is after the scanning Point a Joke.

Hoch

I would have thought that BA would have considerable influence over HAL as it is the only airline being serviced at T5

H

JustTheOne

"We're sorry for the queues Matt. Sadly, the staffing of security personnel is not within our control I'm afraid. ^Gareth"

What a surprise reply...!

ETA: or was this the original tweet?

matthandy

I have to say that this is my experience and I go through at least once every week and have done for the past 6 months. The staff are often busy chatting away to each other like they are at school, passengers are pretty much ignored in some cases. You do get some very nice security staff though, but they aren't common.

What I don't understand is the desk near fast track against the glass barrier. That always seems to be full of people doing nothing. I've no idea what their role is.

Frankly T5 is blissful compared to MUC T2. At least at T5 there is a staff member who is able to take a tray aside to search the bag so as not to hold everyone else up. In MUC they just stop everything including the line for the archways too. Everyone just has to stand around whilst the staff member deals with the bag. It has to be the most frustrating security experience that I have to deal with on a regular basis.

Based on my experiences in MUC I have to disagree with this. I find that the staff manning T5 fast track work faster and the passengers are a lot more prepared. The thing at MUC is that there is no boarding pass check before you reach security, the staff with the trays do this but it's not obvious that you need to have your BP checked. Often people have to rummage around in their bags to retrieve their BP which takes even longer. Additionally, T5 at least allows mixed items in the trays. At MUC it seems like everything has to go in it's own special tray. It is truly maddening.