I’m just back from a trip to the US, and as always I’m stunned by how bad we are at running airports. Over the last few years I’ve visited a lot of US airports and every US airport I have visited has been clean, efficient and well run (with the exception of the US immigration service, who are a law unto themselves).
Every time I land back in the UK, I am embarrassed by how we do it so badly. Manchester is probably the only airport in the world with no indication about where to get a taxi (“Yes, people have complained about that for years” was the response I got when I mentioned it. Why not just fix it!).
Heathrow – the Squeakel
Even then, when I landed at Heathrow on Friday, I was amazed that the first contact a visitor from abroad has with the UK involves two squeaky moving walkways. Not a very promising start for a foreign visitor (this is 30 seconds after leaving the aircraft!) I don’t think I’ve ever hard a moving walkway squeak in the US. But moving rapidly on (as you do on a travelling walkway), it gets worse…
After I’d been thrown around on a shuttle bus, I arrived at the flagship of British airports, the £4.3 Billion Heathrow Terminal 5. Which is where I saw this.
I think I'd ask for my money back
If somebody fitted a conservatory onto my house for £20,000, I think I’d be asking them to sort the problem. But when you spend £4.3 Billion it would appear that different rules apply. Incidentally, The sign was there when I left the UK over a week earlier, which is why I took the photo.
The Olympics begin in London in under 2 years – surely we can do better than this!
Dave,
This pandemic of British negligence can be tackled using one simple tool – Rudy Giuliani’s “Broken Windows Theory”. All it needs is someone to spread the good word!
[...] “Heathrow’s getting a reputation” made me smile when I first saw it, and I was staggered when I encountered a notice at our terminal 5 – see “We just don’t do airports well in the UK”. [...]