Update Nov 2008: Click here for Part 2 of my Heathrow Terminal 5 Review
Flew out of T5 today on a flight to San Francisco. Here are my thoughts on my experience…
- They changed the terminal from 4 to 5 a few days before my flight. Didn’t trust them too much to double-checked online at BA.com just before the cab turned up take me there.
- The fare to T4 from my flat in Richmond is usually £22 – to T5 it was £27 as it’s further away so that’s an extra tenner already!
- I have a BA Executive Club Gold Card which means I can check in at First Class which is always a bonus as no queues. At T4 the 1st Class check in is way in the right hand corner. You then have to double-back halfway along the concourse to go through security. They’ve done exactly the same thing at T5 – I had to walk the length of 10 football pitches to get there only to have to walk 5 pitches back to get through security.
- At check-in the 12 year old boy (looked it) who greeted me was fiddling with a mobile phone he and it seems all the staff have been given because the place is so god damn big. Receiving or sending texts while you’re checking in passengers isn’t very pro now is it?
- I couldn’t tell how quick security would be if all flights were leaving from the terminal as I went through by myself. They’ve at least got the trays coming back automatically instead of having some duffer picking them up and carrying them around and about.
- There are loads of shops selling the usual stuff. Not sure how Prada will do? Is BA really that high class that people will be flocking to Smythsons etc. The rent must be huge!!!
- There are loads of restaurants too – Gordon, Wagamma and Itsu is all I saw as I rushed into the 1st class lounge (ahem!)
- The lounge was pretty empty – the lady on the door just scanned my boarding pass. She didn’t have to do any of the typing which has always amazed me.
- Hot food and pukka wines were on offer plus those nasty coffee machines. Why do they insist on the Scottish shortbread biscuit varieties? For the Americans?
- The toilets were individual which was a nice touch.
- Off to Gate B34 – you have to get a lift down a couple of floors and then get a train. The doors took too long to open and the train went far too quickly as a voiceover warned us all to “hold on tightly” – not arf!Not looking forward to hearing about the first elderly casualty of that mode of transport…
- Passed the customer service desks which were empty – see above!
- Straight onto the plane through fast track 🙂 Lovely!
Now I might look like I’m jumping on the negative “let’s all bash BA for cocking up” but I’m all for things British and especially fair play, however since they introduced the touch screen video-on-demand service a little over a year ago, I have complained nearly 10 times that mine either hasn’t worked or I have had partial service during a flight.
The last time was on a flight to and from Seattle so when I complained they rung me back and admitted they had had huge problems with the system and gave me 25,000 free airmiles.
We take off today and I spark up my TV…
Guess what?
It doesn’t work! – It’s flashing at me, changing channels at will, and then to cream it off, the volume starts going up and up and up in my noise-cancelling headphones until I’m temporarily deafened and have to throw them off because I can’t turn it down.
The cabin services director comes by and spends about 40 minutes re-setting and even wiping the screen to see if it’ll work. Nothing does!
He gives me a “Sorry your entertainment system isn’t working” form promising me 10k airmiles or £50 off their already overpriced “duty free”!
No thanks mate – I will be having words again with your customer service team again, and again, and again.
Not sure if BA knows that Northwest Airlines are opening up a direct route between London & Seattle. There’s every chance they’ll undercut BA and Microsoft will use them for the thousands of flights we make between the smoke and the mothership every year!
I’ve never understood why it costs £3.5k for a return business class ticket on BA from London to Seattle but only £2k the other way around.
I’m sick of rip-off-British-Airways!!!
Do you think they track their online reputation? Hope so…..
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What a winger! Nothing really useful to say?
Just expressing an opinion Rod! 🙂
wow talk about on the negative !! I find the comments about the train are a little silly as the train takes a while for the doors to open becuase if you didnt notice the train actually has to go under a quick security check so the there are no landed passengers mixing with clean security checked passengers, also so that there is nothing left on the train which is for your personal security, it seems to me that you would be the first one to write up about it !! The first class check-in is at one end of the terminal so next time just remember to tell your taxi driver to drop you off at the right end so u have a half minute walk straight through the door and into the first class check-in. The phone that the 12 year old boy (looked like it) was actually probably his allocation device that guides him through the day unless you feel like manually allocating about 1000 staff in one day !! i fly with BA twice a week and i find them extremly possitive and pro-active, if you keep looking for a negative mate youll never find the psositive and sounds like your a pretty miserably chap shame really for every one of you theres about 10 nice positive people oh well !!
Hey Ben – Thanks for the feedback! I am in general a very positive person but was in tandem with BA probably having a bad day 6 months ago when I wrote this post. I’m off to Israel and the US this week from Terminal 5 so how about I write a new post and see if there’s anything positive to report?
[…] Not sure whether BA have employed a company to monitor their T5 online reputation recently, but I’ve had a load of referrals, probably 500% more in the last month or so from folks searching for insight into the new terminal and landing on this page. […]
I used Terminal 5 for the first time on February 6th arriving from JFK, and used it for the last time on February 8th going to JFK.
I had heard a great deal about this terminal, and all I want is to be able to get to the lounge and aircraft as quick as possible. The lounge I finally found was a huge disappointment, suitcases everywhere, dirty glasses left around and a total lack of atmosphere compared to the Virgin Atlantic lounge in Terminal 3. There were other lounges, I think – a North lounge and a South lounge, but this is of no use if you do not know how the location of these lounges relates to your departure gate. Terminal 4 used to have a security Fast Track – apparently there is one at Terminal 5, but I was told just to get into line 9 and that was it. Perhaps line 9 was the Fast Track – but I don’t think so.
However, let’s not even include the lounges and fast track in my chagrin. I had to take two escalators down, then get on a train, then get two escalators up, then the next escalator was not working, then yet another escalator down to the aircraft. I thought the whole point of Terminal 5 was to make getting from check-in to aircraft as quick and easy as possible – it isn’t. It is back to Virgin for me.
Hello,
I need some info with this new terminal 5. I am trying to buy tickets for my wife and newborn (4 months old) from India to USA. Layover in London is only about an Hour (65 minutes). In atlanta airport distance between gates is only a few feet inside a terminal. I looked at the map of T5 and its huge with 3 different buildings, railway between gates, bus escalator and all sorts of things. I am more or less convinced that the mother and baby would definetly not be able to make it through security and all the before mentioned things in 45 minutes ( you have to be at the gate 20 mins prior to dep).
Does anybody here differ with me? Do you think they can make it in an hour? BTW it is HYD->LHR->ATL.Arrival at LHR at 13:00 and dep at 14:05. Both Arrival and Dep from T5.
Thanks,
Praveen
@Praveen I think if you have a connection they’ll wait for you or at least have a cart to drive you to the gate you need to be at. Best thing to do would be to ask your airline or call BA and get their advice. Good luck!
I transited Terminal 5 for the first time in October 2008. I was en route from California to Chicago to London on American Airlines, arriving Terminal 3, and then had to transfer to Terminal 5 for a BA flight from Heathrow to Kiev. I was flying Economy and had no lounge access. The horror stories about 50,000 lost pieces of luggage from Spring 2008 had subsided, so I was curious at to how the terminal would work six months after its debut.
Arriving at Terminal 3, I did not have to go through an immigration check and stayed airside, taking the transfer bus to Terminal 5. Upon arrival at 5, we ascended an escalator to a higher level to the “Ready To Fly” area, where they check to be sure connecting passengers have boarding passes for their next flight (sometimes the originating airport counter cannot generate boarding passes for all of the segments), and also check the hand luggage to be sure it meets UK specs.
Alas, my 22″ rolling carry-on did not meet UK rules, which include the handles and wheels in the length measurement. I was offered a free zippered tote in BA colours, was asked to remove all essentials that I needed for the flight, and then was whisked to a BA desk where the 22″ carry-on bag was checked….this became my third checked piece of luggage, which was no extra charge (if I arrived at the California airport with a third bag to check, they’d want an extra $100).
The BA employee also checked to be sure my other two bags had reached London (they had) and she reissued my boarding pass, because the one from California used scanning technology and they use a magnetic stripe system at LHR (at least in 10/2008). They were firm but fair, and efficient. It was my own fault for not knowing the UK rules for luggage, which apply even to those only transiting London.
At this point, I had a very favourable view of the terminal. The second security check was quick and efficient. But upon exiting security and entering the departures area, the overall impression I had was “this is a shopping mall masquerading as an airport terminal!”
Luxury stores (Harrods, Prada, etc) everywhere, and so large that the corridors are rather narrow. Travellers often had to walk single file to allow others to pass. Bathrooms were poorly marked, had only six toilet stalls each, and always there was a queue snaking out the door into the lobby. I could understand if this was Terminal 1 or 2, fifty years old and being used beyond its intended service life, but not acceptable in a brand new terminal. Well, it’s hard to build adequate WCs when so much floor space is devoted to luxury retailers.
There were horded of green-jacketed airport guides roaming the floors, and for good reason: nothing is easy to locate, given the shopping mall layout and ambiance. The escalators are nearly hidden next to stores, bathrooms are hard to find, and gates in the main “A” building are sandwiched between stores and food vendors. My gate A8 was sandwiched between Starbucks and a retail store, with the yellow A8 sign somewhat hard to locate. The B gates, which I did not visit, must be easily visually to navigate, because all of the vendors are in the A building. But woe onto the hapless traveler trying to find a gate in the main A building.
It was hard even to find an empty chair to sit down. My solution was to buy a coffee at Starbucks, in a sense renting a table and chair for an hour (I had a three hour layover). For those not willing or able to spend money on coffee, or for those with small kids or babies, Good Lord it would be horrible. I’m certain the experience is more pleasant for those with lounge access, but that doesn’t change the fact that the terminal is not a comfortable place to wait if you are in transit and have no lounge perks. And heaven help the hapless person waiting half an hour to use a restroom in a brand new airport.
Message to Praveen: you won’t have to clear immigration or customs at LHR if your final destination is USA. 65 minutes should be plenty of time for a transfer if you are arriving and departing Terminal 5, assuming that you arrive on time from India. The trains connecting the A and B wings run underground and are quick and efficient. American Airlines initially required a three hour connection between Terminals 3 and 5 for its passengers using free mileage tickets, and a minimum of two hours for paying passengers, but I believe the time has been reduced to one hour for paying passengers and two hours for free passengers. In my case, I made the connection from Terminal 3 to my gate at Terminal 5 in under an hour.
stupid review… learn to spell