ajax

Interesting how many people say Heathrow. I think that if you connect solely through Terminal 5, it can be quite lovely. Does anyone disagree?

dgwright99

My 2 cents - T5 is pretty good, T4 is OK, and T3 isn't awful. It's years since I flew out of T1 or T2. A couple of years ago it was pretty bad with all the long security lines outside, but IME that is long gone.

For those who are nominating LHR - what criteria are you using ?

JOUY31

T2 is really uninspiring at best. I haven't been to T1 since BA moved out most of its flights, but I remember that baggage retrieval there was really bad. Connecting between T1/T2 and T4 is not great. I haven't been to T1/T2/T3 by car, since T5 opened either, but at the time, driving out of T2 could take a lot of time. Finally, the BAA-operated Hoppa bus is a total rip-off.

Helsinki Flyer

I like TXL. It hasn´t been updated for a while as they´re building a new airport, but it´s close to town, it has quite a lot of shops, you can step outside right in front of almost every gate, local fast food in addition to the Burger king, meaning currywurst is available from the "food tram" outside, viewing platform, several lounges.

Diplomatico

Clearly you´ve never flown into Fontanarossa in Catania, Sicily. Ugh.

AusEuroFlyer

I'm not particularly impressed with arriving at T5 (can be time consuming to get to the 'UK Border'), but I quite like departing from T5.

jaykay6

I used to hate Heathrow when flying in from Europe but the last few times I have been arriving to T4 from the US and it has been a great experience I feel that CDG is the most miserable airport in the world and LIN is a great airport because it is so close to the city

ajax

Interesting - I've never found the walk to passport control in LHR T5 to be that big of a trek. It seems comparable to most other large airports, and certainly in places like AMS or FRA it can be much longer.

graraps

There are two problems with LHR:

T2 and runway utilisation. The smallest weather anomaly is turned into multi-hour delays...

ajax

Oh I agree totally. T2 is an absolute shambles. But to be fair, it is the original Heathrow terminal and it will shortly be torn down and replaced.

ajax

I can think of another: the bloody moving sidewalks are NEVER working! 50+% of them are always under repair!

Other than that, it's lovely.

AusEuroFlyer

AMS is one of my non-favourite airports. Much worse than arriving at T5.

T5 is usually OK but for whatever reason it took a while to get to the passport control - it was probably T5B. I can't remember exactly, because it doesn't happen that often. I also wish there was something other than just Costa Coffee downstairs in the arrivals, but that's asking for too much. I just like whinging about airports.

szg

I would also say LHR.

ajax

Interesting. Why? You have to walk a bit at AMS to get down the concourse to passport control, but surely that's par for the course at any large airport, right? What could they do to make it better?

Yes, T5B is a bit far, you're right. But at least you get to take a train, unlike at AMS or FRA where you have to walk (albeit on the moving sidewalks).

AusEuroFlyer

A central area with 'forks' sticking out would be my preference, so that you don't end up with the nuisance situation of getting off right at one end of a very long terminal and walking right to the other end for your connecting flight - especially if you are in a hurry. At least, at T5B you have the train, so it's not too bad.

I also found the place quite crowded, with people mostly walking very slowly. I walk very fast so walking any distance at a slow pace tends to frustrate me more, particularly when I'm in a hurry (no so much with people but with the lack of moving).

A very fast-moving travellator would solve the problem of long terminals. I find that most travellators move much more slowly than my walking pace and with a lot of passengers not standing to one side and thus not allowing people to walk on it, they are basically not very attractive to me.

I found sign-posting to be quite poor in places at AMS as well.

But as I said before, I like whinging about airports anyway.

I have no real complaint about departing from T5 (even T5B) though, so I would not say LHR is one of the worst airports. I would say that some terminals at LHR are bad, however