London Heathrow Airport Passenger Reviews and Heathrow Airport Traveller Reports

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I'm afraid to say that Heathrow is well past it's sell by date. I am a regular traveller with Cathy Pacific out of Heathrow T3, but my last trip was truly unforgiving. I arrived at 6pm for the 8.45pm flight, the terminal was packed like I've never seen it before, the queue that was in front of the first class check-in desk was bound for Canada, so I had to barge my way through that before I even got to the desk. Once checked in, I had to make it to the stairs that take you up to security, things was that all the queues were stopping people from getting to the stairs. It was total bedlam and there wasn't even any staff on hand to help solve it. Security was a disgrace, the fast track lane was slower than the normal lanes! Inside it was even worse, there is no order to it, you arrive into a bottleneck that then leads into a retail duty free store. It was absolute madness and the worst I've ever seen it.

Terminal 3: packed, low ceiling. Out-dated. Something should be done quite soon with this terminal. Terminal 5: stayed here during the snow blitz in 2010. Superb design, much space, lots of check-in counters, friendly staff as well. The man let us check in much before we really should. Superb transit area as well. I can see issues popping up very quickly as it's such a big airport.

Arrived from Toronto at 6am, ahead of schedule, and made a swift transfer to Terminal 1 via Flight Connections. Immigration was also a breeze, using the dedicated channel for domestic and Ireland departures. Owing to a ticketing problem, I then had no choice but to return to Terminal 3 to see Air Canada/British Airways. In all it took 3 hours to re-negotiate the now-longer queues, and make the repeat transfer - mind-numbing after a very long overnight flight! To Heathrow's immense credit, I found practically every employee I met to be good-spirited, helpful and tactfully humorous; from the lady transfer bus driver, to the immigration officials. Several recognised me after passing several times through the Connections centre, and they could not have been more charming making a pretty unpleasant experience seem not so bad after all.

Every time I use T5 I regret it. Is it a job requirement that they will only employ rude staff? It made me cringe to watch a BA check-in team member twice shout loudly and rudely at a woman because she accidentally overstepped a line she should have waited behind. Or the immigration woman who was quite abusive to a lady who merely asked - not complained - why a retina scan was needed. Then there is the ability of T5 to lose my luggage, even with state-of-the-art baggage systems and a 1.5 hour connection time. How do they manage it?

Maybe I got lucky, but the transfer experience when going between terminals seems to have improved considerably since my last time here. I was transferring from T5 (BA) to T3 (AA). Signage was generally good, staff helpful, and the queues short and moved quickly. They even have a special "short connections" line at the T3 transfer security area if you have less than an hour before your onwards flight. Perhaps being here early on a Saturday morning helped, but I was pleasantly surprised after expecting the worst. I went from the gate at T5 to my seat in the lounge at T3 in just over 30 minutes; not bad at all for an airport this size. My one complaint is the lack of information on how to transfer to a non-BA airline. All you see are signs that indicate connections within T5, and for connections through "all other terminals". If you don't happen to know which terminal your airline flies out of, this can be confusing. On the plus side, staff were quite helpful in checking to make sure you were headed to the right line.

LHR Terminal 5 on Friday 6th of July. I had the displeasure of waiting 26 minutes just to drop my bag at the check in counter which did say "Bag drop". Waiting time in security was no better with a 10 minutes wait. Generally speaking the check in experience was very poor and clearly showed that BA is the only customer in this terminal and they are contempt with aware. When I get to one of the many restaurants did the experience improve. Here service was fast and efficient. A visit to one of the many toilet showed them to be fairly well kept and in good working order. Sign posting is a bit messy mainly because the informative signs of where to go drowns in advertising posters for various tax free products. Overall a very mixed but rather poor impression of this new terminal. It could be so much more if just BA and BAA wanted it to.

Do not attempt LHR if you need wheelchair assistance - arrived from Seattle Sunday 11 am and were lucky to make our 3pm connection in T1 due to chaotic special assistance in T1. We were made to feel like a nuisance to be moved about rather than customers. Also security staff at T1 rude, impatient, arrogant and when I complained female supervisor backed them up and told me off! A disgrace, I would hate to be arriving for Olympics. These staff need to seriously up their game. Have travelled on a number of occasions in USA, staff are firm but polite. I am embarrassed for what visitors will think of Britain.

My wife and I travel a fair bit and to date our worst ever experience was at Heathrow Airport. It all started off with a queue that stretched beyond the 1km mark fuelled by a 2 hour wait. We were flying in from Australia with a stop over in Dubai. After a long flight, I couldn't remember the address of my friend's place where we'd be staying for a few nights (in London). Once we walked up to the immigration office, I promptly apologised for the missing information and informed him that I did have it on my email but can't access it since there wasn't any free Wifi access in that terminal (we flew Emirates to London). The immigration officer rudely pointed towards a row of people who were detained and I believe would've been checked for drugs, illegal travelers etc. He said and I quote "next time you forget the address, you will be sitting there till you remember where you will be staying" and smirked. I was shocked to see this attitude from someone who was my first point of contact with London. I can't imagine the treatment people will receive when they fly in for the Olympics. I give Heathrow a big zero.

T5 arrival on evening of Sunday 17 June - arrived in the domestic area of T5A on a European flight due to the lack of availability of stands - slightly worrying that there are already such capacity constraints given that this facility is only 4 years old! We had to leave the aircraft via steps and then travel by bus to international arrivals. The terminal was clean and bright as usual but there were long queues at passport control (which I appreciate is more the fault of UK Immigration than BAA/BA). Once through passport control, I was out of the terminal in about 10 minutes. Helpful to have an M&S in arrivals for essential food purchases and there is clear signposting to the Heathrow Express and London Underground.

Terminal 5 is great for shopping but seems to be designed to maximise walking. Huge queues at immigration and thoroughly charmless staff.

Terminal 3. Everything went smoothly for departure, very little queuing for security, enough seating airside.

An old airport and it shows, the carpets are worn and dirt, dust over everything. It needs a good clean. Signs are well posted and very clear. Border control - very long wait, as is the luggage to be delivered on the carrousel.

T3. Arrived at Heathrow from Hong Kong early morning. I did not expect too much especially Hong Kong is claimed to be one of the best airport. However I was pleasantly surprised. Terminal 3 is old but some money has been spent to renovate the terminal. It is a long walk from the gate to the immigration check but there was no queue for European passport holders. Even for foreigners the queue was moving pretty fast. It took me less than 15 minutes from landing to immigration check, which was impressive. Then I went to pick up my luggage and surprisingly they were waiting on the belt. It was a total 20 minutes from the time I landed to the time I got on Heathrow Express. Much more efficiency than Hong Kong. Maybe I was just lucky but I have had really good experience in T1/T3/T5 in the last year. Well done and I am looking forward to visiting Terminal East!

Terminal 5 may be very attractive but it is a functional disaster. We were flying Business on BA with a 90 minute connection time. Despite being able to use the fast-track lines, it still took a lengthy amount of time to get through the repeat security rigmarole. Our outgoing flight was leaving from a "C" gate which meant not only a hike to the train, but a train ride, then another hike to the gate. We arrived at the gate with only 10 or 15 minutes to spare - no time to visit the BA lounge - there isn't one in the "C" section anyway. Would suggest premium class passengers allow a bare minimum of 2 hours of connection - heaven only knows how much time economy passengers should allow - probably at least 3 or 4 hours. Will do my best to avoid connecting at LHR in the future, even if it means extra cost or additional inconvenience. Everyone complains about connecting from International at O'Hare, but that connection took 1/3 the time and 1/10 the hassle compared to our Heathrow connection.

T3 - old, tired, if I had a choice of direct flights from anywhere else in the UK I would go there. Very little seats around other then in the expensive food areas, long lines for departure security and then got to front at staff change over time and had to wait while they all had a chat to each other. No fast food places before or after security so if your travelling with kids be warned. Plenty of expensive places to eat, and as far as I can tell even the snack food is twice the price of the high street. Seats full, there were 2 delayed flights. Long walks to some gates. On a plus side on return no lines at passport control but made up for by a long wait for bags to even start arriving.

Passport control T3 Saturday arrivals, 19.00 (quiet time). Hand luggage only, no checked bags. Was given a fast track pass and wished I hadn't bothered. The e-gates were closed (not that I can use these yet - old passport), and there were only two people serving the fast track queue. EU citizens were stuck behind more complicated immigration needs. It would have been quicker to join the regular UK/EU queue. The only way Fast track would work properly is either a) all 6 positions open or b) segregate UK-EU and Other in the fast track or c) Fast track only for UK-EU. Broadly speaking the 3 e-gates are an irrelevance, and these should have their own queue. And the passport area was hot.

We had a two-hour layover between Boston and our connecting flight to Dublin. We arrived at Heathrow on time, but missed our connection due to nightmare queuing, and no less than 4 security checks (although we were so traumatized that we lost count). And we were not alone in missing that flight. On the return trip, we had an almost 4 hour layover, which allowed us to make our connecting flight, but with not that much time to spare. Once again, the queues were a nightmare. Heathrow provided us with absolutely the worst airport experience we have ever had, bar none. We will never, ever fly into this airport again. If you can avoid it, do so at any cost. If you can't, make sure that you have comfortable walking shoes, not too much to carry, and plenty of time between connections.

Arrived at terminal three from Hungary. The plane parked up on the apron and a series of buses arrived to transfer passengers to the shabby terminal with a long drive through a building site followed by escalators, a broken down travelator and eventually to passport control - mercifully clear but clearly set up to cater for horrendous queues at busy times. The whole thing manages to function only because of goodwill from the staff at the airport but is a national embarrassment.

Flew with BA from Sao Paulo to London, arrived at T5 early morning on a Thursday and had a wonderful experience at the airport, no queues through border control, clean, modern, beautiful terminal and arrived at Paddington in Central London very easily. In my opinion one of the best airports in the world.

Was a passenger only connecting via Heathrow T5. Stress and frustration is my only experiences at Heathrow. If T5 is the most modern of all the airports terminals then it is really one of the least efficient in the world. Our flight landed on time and although we were not exiting the terminal we went through the security process once again which is something I don't understand as transit passengers we were already scanned in our origin airport (in this case Zurich). This additional screening took over 2hrs and meant we were running for our connecting flight. Fast track was also backed up and provided little benefit. Bottlenecks at every screening points and nothing but frustrated passengers and staff. The layout and ineffective processes cannot help. Thank goodness we were not travelling during the Olympics. Good luck to those who do!

Arrived T3 to connect to T5. Spent 2+ hours in line at one check or another, bus trip and more delay at another 2 check lines to finally get to boarding gate at T-5. Only had time for one toilet stop, and spent rest of time on line and trying to get to gate. Flight was in final boarding when I arrived and barely made flight. Shameful experience at LHR for the traveller. Would not even consider coming back for an event in London if I had to transit LHR.

19th April. LHR-EDI. Terminal 5 a delight, and massive improvement on other terminals. Modern design and bathed in natural light, great views of the airfield. Just wish we had left more time to enjoy the views! Will definitely look forward to using T5 again in the future.

LHR-LAS-PHX-LHR. Very straightforward passage through T5 on outward journey. One avoidable hitch when we left the lounge for T5B. We were unloaded from transit for an apparent fault and put on the next. The first then left with people on it anyway. Impressively fast on the way back in spite of recent adverse publicity about the UKBF/UKBA. There was a wait for the transit at a busy time. There were queues at immigration but, to my surprise, IRIS was still in operation. Baggage handling was commendably fast but then a lot of time was wasted waiting for the inadequate and infrequent Hotel Hoppa. A broken toilet had a sloppy sign indicating more that it was not being fixed than it was likely to be any time soon. A key escalator in the still fairly new T5 was not working and another in the same sequence was taped off even though it was running. Heathrow should be very amusing during the Olympics but I don't plan to test that.

Arrived at T3 at 05.45 from Singapore. Joined a queue of about 50 people in Fast Track - the queue behind me grew to hundreds in minutes. Two passport officers were dealing with Fast Track arrivals. After about 5 minutes one of the officers closed his desk down and walked off. Totally mysterious. I got through in about 30 minutes - God knows what happened behind.

Earlier this year I arrived at Terminal 3, of the 32 immigration desks available 3 were occupied by staff - lines were endless and the waiting time unacceptable. I later complained to the Border Agency, they didn't even investigate the complaint. It was slow and chaotic and had nothing to do with robust border control, if anything it made it seem something of a joke.

Arrived from Dubai early Tuesday morning 24 April tired after night flight with a one year old. Utter chaos through passport control. We were blocked from taking the Baggage collection route and were not advised how to get there. We went to Baby changing room by the baggage pick up which was a big room but only had one baby changing table! How ridiculous is that and what sort of impression does that give to visitors in a brand new Terminal? I wanted to transfer to the Bus Station, I searched for signs to the bus station of which there were none, was told I took the train to Terminal 1. No information on the train station as to which stop for the Bus Station.

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