Well I lived the adventure, it makes for a pretty fine shopping mall I must say! Plenty of staff at Dixons, PC world, World DutyFree, had a great burger at Giraffe, oh and there’s aeroplanes with blue bellys and shooshie tails (my daughters saying) parked outside too.
HA! I had the dubious pleasure of being in transit through T5 this afternoon in uniform coming from the continent in transit to a UK domestic destination.
Getting off the plane was hassle free even getting to the immigration cue was straightforward, but definitely not enough signage.
Immigration cue….. well it was like arriving at Sydney at 6am with 4 other widebodys….. no where near enough immigration staff to deal with the numbers. Next was to be fingerprinted…. Errrr no the machine was buggered so I got my photo taken instead, which is ok however once the chap told this old fart to remove my glasses then I don’t know whether I was looking at the camera or the short skirt belonging to the blond in front of me!
Then it was up the escalator to go through security again, well if you thought the days of “flight connections” shambles at T1 was history….. its not. Cues just the same no where near enough security staff manning the new wiz bang x-ray machines for the crowds, it took close to 30 mins which is really not acceptable, given that this place was meant to be better!
The culprit was two things, staff undergoing training and the new wizbang xray machine that returns the grey buckets itself….. great idea.. less people required. However the was an lass in front of us with a Cello…. If its not in the buck it wont fit, also there was a super size me pram for twins…. Nope did no go through either…. No bucket, no fit,
Also the amount of people that set the walk through metal detector off also meant that there was no one to collect their bucket…. So there was a bucket back up to the point where no more was being screened.
In summary there would be more capacity however it is foiled but the one thing that can never be accurately gauged. The human element.
If, and this is a big If, the operators at the terminal saw what the retail “customer service” business have in relation to staff then their may actually be customer service for the airline transport medium, which I thought was one of the reasons we flew full service airlines.
Operationally I just watched a 747 sit ½ in the bay because it appeared the guidance system did not work until you guessed it the magic wands came out and they moved onto blocks. Another 5 min delay here and its subsequent flow on effects.
The finish to the building, well its not finished! Once you get away from a retail area then there is things missing… like lifts, doors, the roof, ok maybe some of it is meant to be exposed but there are some bits that are not. On the far northern end (A1/2) with some BA office/ lounge things, one of them does not even have the glass door installed yet so there is an ill fitting wooden door in frame that has gaps above and below but the keypad lock is still there.
The floors are dirty, you would not think the place has been open only a couple weeks, the loose chairs are scattered around like kids toys, there is rubbish, (food wrappers, newspaper and the like) that have not been picked up on chairs and the floors….. and come to think of it I have yet to see a cleaner doing the rounds like you used to in the other terminals.
So in summary its been rushed and that is visible, BA/BAA wanted something world class, well they got it, a World Class F***UP! Thinking of big buildings at airports HKG puts the place to shame.
Thankfully I did not have any checked bags, I would not like to have had to write that story.
Finally there is this billboard at gate A2……. Says it all really
