Malingering in Heathrow

Airport Revue

Heathrow doesn't work. My apologies to the tea and crumpet set, but frankly, the airport is a sham. Someone substituted an oversize mockup of the set from Labyrinth and tried to call it an airport. Seriously, though, Heathrow has serious flaws that I tend to forget immediately after leaving. This time, I shan't forget , though. I want to be braced for my return in May.

Distance: Simply put, the damn terminals are too far apart. We landed at Terminal Four. Wello, that is, we would have been at Terminal Four, had we not stopped in the middle of an ancillary taxiway and debarked onto the tarmac. The passengers were hustled into buses and then driven the rest of the way to Terminal Four. But Terminal Four wasn't even where we wanted to go. Flight connections are primarily out of Terminals 1 and 2. Consequently, after stalking through an empty Terminal Four, I came out rather near where we were originally dropped after doing an enormous walking tour of the empty building. Then, it was a ten minute wait for a bus, followed by a ten minute bus ride to get to the other terminals. After hiking through another small maze, I sighted an extensive level of shops a floor down. Bolstered by the proximity of the lounging area, my spirits lifted...then, were crushed as I turned a corner. We'd hit the security lines.

Now, I'll grant you that one should never expect to waltz through security. Lord knows, I travel out of LAX enough to despise the invariable bottleneck. But Heathrow was just obscene.

Hundreds and hundreds of travelers stewed in lines waiting to go through one of five operating X-ray machines. There were several machines simply not in use. The time spent in line exceeded any other traveling I've ever done, and this wasn't even a busy day (as I overheard a staffer telling a complaining traveler -- he pinned the blame on management. Keep that buck moving).

After forty bitter minutes, I escaped through the scanners and trotted down several escalators to find the signage that promised to reveal the gate of my connection to Athens.

No such luck; my flight was delayed an hour (which means that every single flight I've been on thus far has been delayed, both in coming to the airport and then in taking off after everyone was aboard).

An hour later, after the gate was finally revealed, I tossed my pack back on back and went to get on a plane. Little did I realize I'd spend another ten minutes walking to get to the gate. Ridiculous. I'll be the first to say, I'm no stranger nor enemy of a brisk walk to the gate. But I like to know ahead of time if I'm going to be trekking.

The vast expanses and relative unhelpfulnes of staff members helped me make sense of a sign posted throughout the airport. It read something like this:

"We appreciate the time and difficulty of traveling. Please recall, however, that the airport staff have and deserve their rights as well. We will not tolerate VERBAL ABUSE, THREATS, OR VIOLENCE, toward airport staff. Any of the above can result in your arrest or prevent you from flying."

I decided to choke back the acerbic epithets I'd been working on.