UK gov't to Heathrow: fix your bloody security queues
Now that I'm living in London again, I find myself flying through Heathrow a lot, which has all the charm of a colonoscopy and all the comfort of being trapped in a cargo container. The lines are like something out of the ninth pit of hell, especially in the Virgin terminal, and the rules about carry-ons and so forth keep getting more and more inhospitable.
God, I hope that this means that I can look forward to a more pleasant aviation experience.
"BAA has failed to manage security queueing and queue times to avoid unacceptable delays to passengers, crew and flights, and have not furthered the reasonable interests of the users of Heathrow and Gatwick," a report by the Competition Commission said...Link (Thanks, Alice!)The commission statement contained severe financial implications for Ferrovial, which throw into doubt the refinancing of the £9.3bn debt the Spanish group took on when it bought BAA for £10.3bn last year. The commission backed CAA proposals to slash BAA's return on capital at its two biggest airports, which led Ferrovial to warn that refinancing plans "might not be able to be implemented as envisaged".
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Every time I see something about people being really annoyed because of queue delays at airports, I silently humm to myself "just friggin' wait...safety first...". I'm sure (actually no, I'm not 100% certain) that this order on heathrow does not mean "speed up, risk safety factors", but every time I go to any American airport that is busy...such as ORD or LAX, I watch the security haphazardly scan/inspect my items and I just wanna say, gosh, look harder, search harder, I know it's not the most engaging job in the world but in extreme cases people's lives depend on it...
Terrorists don't hate airplanes, they love terror. Putting 500 distracted travellers in an unsecured area in a clump in airport is like a landing-strip for a suicide bomber.
Guess the US isn't so bad after all.
Cory @#2 for the win.
-abs
hah! Finally!
I also frequently fly through Heathrow, my colleagues and I have nicknamed it "The George Orwell Theme Park" because of that horrible, horrible security queue.
Cory, your comment at Nr. 2 also really captured my thoughts on the matter. I'm actually sort of amazed that hasn't happened yet!
I just flew through Heathrow twice last week, and both times the security queue was negligible.
What was horrific (and insecure) was the connections between terminals. Try getting between the very last gate at Terminal 1 and the very last gate at Terminal 4 sometime! We ran the whole way, with our bags, and barely made our flight -- almost an hour it took us (the incoming flight was quite late).
OK, long terminals I can deal with, but the bus ride? There are DOZENS of entry points where baddies could get into areas past (some) security (not to mention that in the meantime your plane is crawling with cleaners and baggage handlers who have never had to pass security).
On one of our bus rides, we were ON THE TARMAC, AMONGST THE PLANES -- we were so close that I thought a wing was going to clip the bus (it would have been too high, but seriously!)
You KNOW the "no liquids" rule is super-duper important, because of what the security workers do with the liquids they confiscate -- throw them in huge trash bins right next to the gate. In Dublin, there was a huge pile of full clear-plastic trash bags of liquids right next to the security line -- the bags were leaking, and the passengers were literally stepping in the spilled lattes and perfume running onto the floor. Heathrow was nearly as bad. So much for security. Not to mention sanitation and common decency.
But the lines themselves? Not that bad. Nowhere near as bad as Sea-Tac, for instance. The place looks completely hammered, but that's because it's the busiest airport in the world. It's a busy system, and they actually move people through pretty fast. Try Cancun sometime, when six 747s are getting ready to load!
I'm a lot more worried about the mountain of 1.4 million lost bags at LHR. Our bags didn't make our connection, and apparently spent the next two days in standing water -- the contents were soaked through when they finally arrived. I think that's down to BA, not Heathrow, though.
But seriously -- build a train or something. Those buses have to go.
I fly to Africa twice a year and used to go through Heathrow...but stopped this year because, well, Heathrow is insane.
Based on other airports...here are a few, cheap, ways to reduce the queue...
1) Longer Tables for Carry-On prep...3, 2 meter tables end to end gives everyone plenty of time to line up. Most re-designed security areas in the US make this a priority because saving 1 minute has a ripple-effect
2) Proper communication...Las Vegas has great videos to tell people what they need to do...You see people prepping. Really pushing people to prep makes a huge difference. I would side on the rough side for these videos and really push people to be ready.
I believe those 2 would double the line speed alone...without reducing the safety of the process. "Civilians" (non-business travelers) are really 90% of the hold-up.
3) Relax 1 Bag hard limit - This makes a mess of everything because people, like me, wear crazy jackets that are harder to go through the Xray to make up for the second bag (which I carry in the pocket of the jacket). Scotti Vests can carry 20kg of gear.
While I have found good ways to bypass Heathrow...I miss the lunches in London in the middle of the trip and would love to return...but I'm not holding my breath.
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Haha this would be perfect for an Andy Parsons ( http://www.andyparsons.co.uk/ ) joke about how much the british love to que :oP
^^^Spam spam spammity spam spam.
Exactly, it is so much more dangerous to have a huge crowd of people standing around in a terminal. How many people are in a jet? A few hundred? And in the airport? And... you can walk in with any size bag you want. Even one on wheels. Stanstead is even worse there is more open space and literally thousands of people in lines.
Editorial note regarding Gilbert Wham's #9 -- it refers to a now-nuked comment from a none-to-subtle comment spammer who's just lost his account.
Actually, I've found Heathrow to be far better than Gatwick, which was a nightmare. I've barely queued at all at Heathrow.
Problem is, how much can Heathrow actually do? Some things will help (like longer tables, suggested above); but some things are beyond their control (relaxing the one carry on bag rule). But hopefully this will start putting pressure on those silly rules...
GATWICK! GATWICK!
Good point about dangerous liquids being chucked into garbage cans. If they were so darn dangerous, chucking them should solve the problem. I've read that the EU is thinking of changing this. It's utterly ridiculous.
I agree with safety measures but not ridiculous measures.
I fly to the UK from Spain all the time (boyfriend lives in UK, I live in Spain) and is anyone aware that you can carry lots of handluggage TO the UK, but NOT FROM the