Originally Posted by chevvron
we had to taxy from the east end of T2(near the GA terminal) all the way past the 25R localiser (ie behind it) to get to 25L. There was an aircraft on rollout on 25R as we crossed the end of the runway.
The comments about the landing on 8th don't surprise me in the slightest.
Re. 12th however, just so you understand what's going on (and I hope I don't come across as patronising here and telling you stuff you already know as an ex-ATCO, I gather from your profile you are a PPL who therefore may not have flown into BCN commerically)... this is actually normal operations at BCN, and not down to iffy controlling. The standard taxi route to 25L from the 'old' terminal (which easyJet and Ryanair use, among others) is parallel to 25R to the far end and proceeding via a taxiway called 'S14' to cross the centreline, before continuing back the other way parallel to 25R on the other side. S14 (and T14 adjacent to it) cross the undershoot of 07L/25R but do not actually cross the runway itself; therefore it is permissible to cross while an aircraft is landing or on the roll-out on 25R.
It's even worse when 07L is in use and you're crossing right underneath landing traffic a couple of hundred feet above you at the most - I ALWAYS brake and wait for the landing traffic to pass before crossing. All you need is a major bird strike on short final resulting in a LHR 777-type incident, and you could have a catastrophe of Tenerife proportions.
You very occasionally get a crossing of 25R much closer to the terminal if it's your lucky day and you get one of the few controllers at BCN who is actually good at their job and wants to help you out, but the standard response when you ask for this is "negative, too much traffic on the ILS" even when you can see and hear quite clearly there is nobody around for miles.