August 16, 2007 Poor Heathrow
A day in the life of hated Heathrow is the subject of this Times of London story. Read it and you’ll never check another bag as long as you live. Some highlights:
The phrase “Heathrow hassle” has entered the lexicon, and commentators have vied to produce the most colourful put-downs – a “really expensive mall with planes”, “customer service reminiscent of the worst days of nationalised British Rail”, scenes “reminiscent of Nairobi slums”. Heathrow has also been described as an airport “bursting at the seams” and “held together by sticking plaster” – and that came from Tony Douglas before he resigned as BAA’s chief executive last month…
In the Terminal 1 reclaim areas we find the pile of 300 bags sitting unattended in a corner. Richard Wazacz, BAA’s 33-year-old head of logistic operations, admits that Heathrow’s baggage-handling record is “unacceptable” but – unsurprisingly – he insists that the airlines are to blame.
Wazacz takes us into a control room lined with screens showing bags whizzing along miles of subterranean conveyor belts before tipping into baggage chutes. He shows us a map of the belts that looks like tangled spaghetti. We visit a thunderous cavern to watch bags descending an extraordinary helter-skelter that takes them 60 metres down into the bowels of Terminal 1, and from there along a mile-long tunnel to Terminal 4. It is a “stone-age” system, he concedes.
AND - this just in: Today at Heathrow EVERY flight was delayed or late!
Reader Comments (2)
The whole article needs to be read, not just paragraphs out of context.
http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/article2265513.ece
http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/article2265422.ece
We link to the entire story - and we excerpt it so that you'll want to read the whole story. Thanks for reading our blog and commenting - Brad