Article on Heathrow Terminal Operations

An article about Heathrow from today's Times can be found here. Not sure which would be worse at 16 - the Compliance Officer job reported here or the Community Support Officer jobs talked about elsewhere in the press.

Paul

[Scrooge]

That is an interesting read, thank you for posting the link, it will indeed be interesting to see what effect the opening of T 5 has, with a little bit of luck BAA may be able to turn Heathrow into a good airport...Of course the argument could also be made that by the time they get all the terminals built/remodeled they will be out dated again.


However it might be a good idea for the government to put the brakes on a third runway until the terminal renewal is complete, as the article says Heathrow is pretty much running at capacity, the extra runway will of course increase the capacity before the infrastructure can support it in a trouble free way.

Scrooge, if BAA slows down on a third runway, it will take a VERY long time for it to happen. Even as it is, it's going to take years to overcome all the total and utter idiots who complain about living under a flight-path (despite moving there after the airport) and yet do not want to move out to somewhere without this inconvenience to make way for the runway.
Plus, everyone bitches about extra carbon emissions but, in the short-run, it may help (excluding construction) as a/c won't have to sit on the taxiway with engines running for as long and won't have to hold for such a long time. In the long run, airlines will probably have to switch to biofuel anyway so emissions will be less of an issue in any case.
Besides, if we don't take advantge of extra demand, it will simply go to CDG,FRA, AMS and we will lose out. In addition, people don't want expansion at LHR and yet complain about the state of it the whole time.

Thanks for the link, Paul[y]

45.

[Scrooge]

I understand what you are saying...but how long to redo all the terminals, I saw they are planning on having 1 and 2 redone by 2012..but what about 3 and 4 ?

[RichardMannion]

Yes, thanks for the link. An interesting read to say the least - my sympathy cap isn't out for BAA though.

They want to double the landing/passenger fees to fund their expansion? Err no. This is the company that charges how much to park up for 10 minutes at the airport to pick someone up? Same company that makes how much money off all that retail?

The same company that rushed as a priority to get banners/media printed to tell people last year after the security changes that they can carry on buying once they had cleared security? And as I noticed this week they have a huge current campaign to tell its customers that the prices in the terminal are the same as the high street for a coffee or breakfast (though at some overpriced high street chain that has no idea of quality)?

Granted it is a logistical nightmare, though I think many improvements could have been made a lot sooner - it's not as if the capacity got to that point overnight. They got greedy and let the place become very stale.

Thanks,
Richard

Well T1/2 (East) will be 2012 as you say but AFAIK 3/4 are not being re-done to the same extent. T3 is currently going through a refurb and I guess 4 will undergo a similar improvement while allowing capacity to continue at current levels, unlike the redevelopment of T1/2 which will probably necessitate their closure. Thus, if and when the runway is completed, the terminals themselves will have increased capacity to compensate.

45.

[RichardMannion]

A classic FT post...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=725871

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by RichardMannion
A classic FT post...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=725871

Brilliant!