I have finally had the “pleasure” of flying from Heathrow’s Terminal Five. The architecture is pleasant enough but does not remotely live up to the hype. The queues at security and passport control were short, so that is a blessing.
But the terminal managed to produce a miserable experience in both directions. On the way out, I sat in front of a departure screen which then froze: it appeared to be working just fine, but simply assured me that my flight was not yet boarding when in fact I was about to miss the plane.
On the way back, the plane and ground crew were directed to different gates. After a delay, the floating walkway suffered a technical fault. After further delay, the pilot informed us that we were an international arrival in the domestic part of the terminal, and so would have to be shuttled around by coaches. In the end we got through passport control an hour late.
I may be giving the future of air travel another throw of the dice in a few weeks. I’ll keep y’all posted.
