I must admit, it is not simply a case of walk through the shop and get on with it. The hoards of people being fooled into thinking they are getting bargains, spraying their perfumes everywhere and leaving their oversized bags in the way while they go off to by a 4 meter long Toblerone all certainly add time to my journey.
I do like LHR T2 and T5 for those reasons. Plenty of other airports manage it. HKG, ICN, NRT, DOH, DUB, CDG, ORD...just some of the major airports I've used recently and not one has had this set up. Seems to be a greedy UK thing. I haven't used a Belfast airport for a few years, but what a shame if BFS has gone down this forced shopping mall mess. I hated when EDI became one of the sheep and followed this awful trend. EDI is particularly bad as you need to actually double back on yourself to get through the shop and at peak times the line for the tills can block the exit!