My wife and I recently visited the Christmas markets on the Danube River. We used London’s Heathrow airport for our European entry and exit and were amazed at how convoluted its intra-terminal transport system is. Heathrow uses an escalator-elevator-purple bus-safety screening-train-airline check-in desk-bus-outside stairs delivery system. How long would that take? you may ask. We arrived in London two hours before our Houston bound flight and were (gratefully) the last passengers to claim our seats.
On the way from the States to the continent, we had a five-hour layover that allowed us to ponder the signage and ask for directions at leisure. But that experience, and the knowledge that we would be running this gauntlet in reverse in two weeks, made us realize that we would need to put on our running shoes and keep our wits about us to get home without missing our flight.
The transit in three stages.
Stage one: follow the purple arrows from the arrival zone, down two escalators, to a waiting area that led to a bus that ferries passengers from one terminal to another. My wife asked the gate attendant, who had a curiously North American accent, if we would need to pass security at the next terminal. “Probably,” she said. The answer should have been “you betcha.” Intra-terminal movement at Heathrow relies on a road and tunnel network that serves passengers, food services, maintenance vehicles and small, British Airways vans. All of these conveyances bob and weave through a traffic system guided by stop and yield signs and an opaquely- acknowledged hierarchy of right of way.
Stage two: from the bus stop ride escalators from ground level to the second storey. By this time we were getting anxious, and we were not alone. Just as we boarded the stairway, a group of young women clad in spandex and carrying backpacks sprinted past. Although it was not immediately clear at this point, we were all headed for a British Airways security position. In preparation for the metal detector, I removed my iPad from my carryon, took off my belt, and put cell phone, wallet, and loose change into my jacket. I thought that I was clean for scanning, but no. I had not removed my pocket handkerchief and had to go through a body scanner.
Stage three: As we hoofed toward the train, I held my coat, my carryon, my belt and my pocket handkerchief. I tried to reassemble on the run until my wife muttered “I don’t care about your damned belt, hurry up.” An elevator dropped us at a train platform where we boarded a vestibule that stopped at the range of gates that included ours, and we hopped off. At some point during the train ride British Airways changed our departure gate, but, luckily, my wife spotted this, and we did not have to travel far out of our way. As we puffed up to the ticket position, the attendant welcomed us and said that she was just about to announce that we had forfeited our reservation. All we had to do now was descend to ground level, board another bus and climb an outside staircase to the airplane cabin door.
Everything turned out for the best, I suppose, and as it turns out, we could have been routed through Gatwick, where rogue drones had grounded all flights for the day.
To learn more, a YouTube video, “The Horrors of Heathrow: a short history,” might be a good place to begin.
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