Ms Bangkokeasy and self flew in for annual hols at T3 on 26th July and were gobsmacked when we found ourselves standing at the curbside waiting for the car hire shuttlebus not 20 minutes after the wheels of TG916 touched down. The first time in 10 years I have not seen any delays coming in whatsoever. STRAIGHT onto the arrival stand, NO queue at immigration and all 4 bags were even dutifully circling the carousel BEFORE we got there.
You see chaps, it is possible with a little application.
However, the experience was not so rosy on the way out. The M25 was closed, due to the wrong sort of accident and in the absence of any sort of common sense by the authorities, it took 5 hours to get to LHR from Kent, resulting in a missed flight and 9 hour sojourn in T3, before the next one. Why are we sooo sensitive when it comes to incidents of any kind that we have to close everything causing huge problems for hundreds of thousands of people just because a few cars and trucks have had a fender bender???
Anyway, in the hours spent waiting for the next flight, BE read up on plans for LHR. T3 may look ok when finished, but then there is the further development of Heathrow East. One bit in the blurb caught my eye - "it is stressed that the development of Heathrow East will not mean an increase in capacity over that of T1 and T2". What??? Hello??? Has someone taken leave of their senses??? You can put your head in the sand as much as you like in the name of being "green", but surely this doesn't just mean "naiive and inexperienced"? With global trends continuing the way projected, there will be a further 30% or so PAX wanting to use this facility by the time it is built. Somehow, "shortsighted" doesn't quite do this justice. Get real someone.