I Hateses Heathrow, My Precious

[jacey]

Here I sit on the 22nd floor of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Ottawa. It's the lull before the storm. The conference begins tomrrow and I flew in today. Up at five. Arrive Manchester airport T3 at 7.00 Depart for Heathrow at 8.55, arriving slightly ahead of schedule at 9.50. Change terminals from T1 to T3 at Heathrow and depart for Ottawa at 1.00 p.m. arriving 3.30 local time at the airport and 5.00 p.m. at the hotel (which is Midnight back at home).

The journey reconfirmed that I hate Heathrow airport. I walked for bloody miles in T1 and then had to queue for a bus to change terminals, stand in yet another (slow) security check queue (just like the one I'd already come through at Manchester), and walk for bloody miles again to the  lounge at T3. Once in T3 they didn't announce our gate until well after the advertised 11.55, but there was a worrying notice that said to allow 10 minutes to get to the nearest gates and 20 minutes for te furthest ones. That's another 20 minute walk just to get to the gate from the lounge. Sheesh, no wonder I've got sore feet. I was watching the board like a hawk. As soon as tey announced the gate I set off and still found the gate lounge already full. Did they all walk faster than me or had they been told the gate number in advance? I'd barely sat down when the plane started to board.

I had a 3 hour stopover at Heathrow on the way out, but on the way back it's only 2 hours. And I also have to collect my luggage and clear customs before changing terminals and connecting for Manchester. If there's another queue at Immigration and another trip through security with  my dangerous laptop having to be taken out of its case yet again and my lethal toothpaste I don't see how I can make the connection in time. I'm seriously thinkiing of telling therm I need transport. Heathrow is just too damn big.

There was a woman doing a survey and one of her questions was: Why did you choose Heathrow to connect through instead of some other arport? I wanted to scream: 'Because I had no sodding choice!'

Ottawa airport is a delight in comparison.

Comments

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Heathrow is a nightmare. Sadly within the price that the conference was willing to pay I didn't really have a choice. Transferring at Newark in the USA would have been almost as bad with the added bonus (!) of having to clear American customs and immigration just to transfer to a flight to Canada and then still have to clear Canadian customs and immigration. Even transferring in Toronto would have meant clearing customs at Pearson and hoping my bag made it to Ottawa on the same flight as I did.

At least on this trip my heavy luggage was checked through. On the return I have to clear customs which means reclaiming bags and then getting them on to the right belt for the Manchester flight ande probably haviung my bag follow on the later flight. That's happened before at Heathrow. Wouldn't you think they'd have a better system? (It's no wonder Heathrow is a black hole for lost baggage!)

When you fly to the US from Canada you clear customs in the Canadian airport so if you're transferring there's no need to touch your bags again until you get to the final destination. Wouldn't that make sense? Maybe not for all countries or even all airports, however Heathrow is the biggest airport in the world with the biggest through-put of transfer passengers and stupidly long wait times. Dammit even the airline check-in folks could ask those customs questions. They trust them to make sure you're not carrying a bomb, but not to ask you if you have any goods to declare. Sheesh! There would still be the spot checks at the British end - which is all they seem to have now anyway. How long since you actually spoke to a customs officer? They give you the nothing to declare channel and probably watch you walk through, but rarely check.

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

They give you the nothing to declare channel and probably watch you walk through, but rarely check.


I walked into the red channel once, quite deliberately, because I knew I'd gone over the limit if not by much. Stood there for 10 minutes until someone eventually emerged. When I said I was bringing back over the limit of purchases they said, by how much? Not much? I agreed less than a hundred canadian dollars and they said fine, go on through then. I figure they probably consider time on the red channel as additional break time. :)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

We got spot-checked at Australian customs once with 350 CDs in my suitcase. It was theoretically not over the limit for three of us but they pulled Brian and I in for a check and wouldn't let Hilary follow us, so there were only two of us by the time they x-rayed the bag and said... this case is full of CDs. I just kept my expression blank and said (very evenly) Yes it is. There was then one of those very long pregnant pauses during which they hope you'll start babbling and trying to explain yourself, but but I just kept my face completely straght and my head slightly tilted to one side as if wondering why that should be a problem. At length the guy just said: OK you can go.

To this day I'm not sure if he was weighing up whether someone obviousloy as thick or maybe naive as me should be allowed to live or whether it wasn't worth the paperwork to do something about what was obviously over the limit. On friend, on taking CDs in to Oz, had them impounded and had to go back to the airport the following day to get a customs broker to clear the paperwork. On top of the duty you pay a couple of hundred for the broker. Hence we took smack bang on the limit for the three of us.