I would say that people prefer other airports because they are better than Heathrow.

The idea that Heathrow is it for the UK and we must use it is clearly not being listened to by millions of passengers around the UK who no longer need/wish to use it.
The reality is there are much better airports to travel via if a direct option is not available.
Another issue that Heathrow has is the incumbent BA which is quite simply not a particularly good airline anymore.
Especially for First/Business class passengers where BA has been well and truly left behind.
That makes Heathrow less attractive because they are the biggest operator and as such passengers will fly via somewhere else to get better service. Especially East Bound.

I totally agree with you I assume most of those that refer to LHR as a 'hell hole' have not used the airport for a very long time as both Terminal 2 and Terminal 5 are probably two of the best airport terminals in the world and Terminal 4 is a far greater experience than it was ten years ago.

These people that call LHR a 'hell hole' just make the same statement time and time again without having probably used the airport in recent years.

LGW and LHR are both easy to get to and the fact that this argument continues is ridiculous as it all depends from what direction your coming from or if your traveling by car or public transport, for an example where I live in Southampton in Hampshire LHR is 55 miles and takes approximately one hour and LGW 70 miles away and takes about one hour and 20 mins, STN being a lot further and my third choice is 123 miles away and doable in less than two hours.

Seems everyone moans about traveling distance to LGW and LHR but personally it doesn't concern me as I find the commute very easy.

I fly to the US a couple of times a year and I never use Heathrow, i always go via Amsterdam from Cardiff. I don't use Amsterdam because it's a better airport, I use it because it's more convenient and generally more cheaper for me to fly via Amsterdam from Cardiff. I'm sure Heathrow is a nice airport.

Not really, but in turn you might be surprised at the number of passengers in Western Europe who head to/from LHR rather than trek to the likes of CDG or other large Western European airports.... I suspect that for the leisure travellers in Europe at least ticket price/getting a good deal trumps other factors...

Canberra97


You may well be right. Due to a combination of circumstances I found myself in T4 recently and didn't recognise the place as the lightless airless box I used to work out of a few years back, as for LHR being a hell hole- as others have said from an infrastructure/facilities POV has certainly improved in recent years and continues to do

Have to say that if going long-haul and paying out of my own pocket the cost of APD on a Business Class ticket out of the UK makes a trip via AMS or CDG well worth it

We traveled for 60% of the LHR cost to/from Oz last year - not all APD - less demand for sure but still.............

And now the BBC

Heathrow expansion: is MP opposition growing? - BBC News

somebody is giving ministers wiggle room!

Heathrow critics say revised figures have 'trashed' original case for expansion

And even The Torygraph leads the charge with a headline that "case for Heathrow is trashed"

No, it is an assertion that LHR will never expand (in any significant way) from what it is now. The combination of well documented events over the last 30 years, coupled with the decline of the £/Britain is what drives my view. Whilst the low pound might bring some advantages, they will only be short term.

As I said, I also think that any changes made now, however dramatic, will not change a thing.

APD wll kill it. Also don't forget MAN is a great hub with good transport links and a huge catchment area. Don't like LHR.

Not mentioned so far is that whenever operational constraints occur at LHR, whether it is due to an incident or the weather, it is, in my experience, the regional shuttle flights that BA will cancel first, leaving regional passengers connecting to long haul high and dry. This happened to me in poor weather one winter travelling from MAN to LHR and on to the mid-east.

So I avoid LHR and much prefer AMS, then FRA or the ME outfits for long haul from MAN. CDG I also find a 'difficult' airport to make a transfer at.

Of course expansion at LHR may mean that the cancelling of BA shuttle flights first goes away.

Post 137 has LHR having 122 Westboud daily scheduled flight. The comparable MAN numbers is around 11 legacy scheduled (AA,AC,SQ,UA,VS). Even when you throw in TCX and TOM, it's not even close. MAN is a great airport, but it is not a hub in any meaningful sense of the world, it has no based hub and spoke carrier.
APD has been around for ages and has slowed the rate of growth but it's not reasonable to go as far as you suggest.

In Oban
Last time I was through LHR T5 was 14 months ago while connecting off an inbound flight from South America only to be told that my connecting flight to MAN had been cancelled due to "operational reasons", but not to worry we were going to be bused up the M6. You do not want to hear what I said about this.
That was both my first BA flight in a number of years and the first time I had used LHR since about 2009. Needless to say my experiance that day and the average to poor BA service on the flight has clouded my judjment re LHR and BA, and I have not returned since to either. T5 is ok but nothing that great, and as others have said the resident carrier (BA) is also no longer what it was, in my admitted now very limited experiance of them.

My biggest gripe at LHR is the difficulty in transferring terminals. Twice I've recently connected BA to BA to find it's T5 to T3. Both occasions the transfers took almost 2 hours gate to gate- which is pants. How can you build a terminal (T5) that isn't even big enough on day 1?
As has already been said, any slightest glitch and the regional connections get chopped.
Give me AMS any day.

A lot of the arguments above that are supposed to be against expansion at LHR are actually arguments for it.

1.Because of the physical restrictions of the site.
2. BA had to close the LGW hub due to unsustainable losses and so a swathe of long haul, (South America and part Africa) was moved back to LHR
BAA and BA had initially expected the BA operation to be smaller.

The planning process is the reason T5 is on so many floors, they had to build up.

Not if expansion cannot be undertaken economically.

Well that's what the revised scheme has been all about isn't it?

How much do they need to cut from the plans before it becomes acceptable?

The fundamental issue is government spend on surface access and underwriting the private investment (which essentially ties the governments hands over not approving LGW runway 2).

''Heathrow, hell-hole''
People who still use this kind of language haven't been there for quite a while and possibly don't get to fly much beyond the two weeks in Benidorm.
T5 and T2 are pretty good and certainly much much nicer and more user-friendly than either T1 or T3 at Manchester.
Changing terminals at LHR though should be avoided at all cost.

The main reasons I don't use LHR as much as I used to are:
1) There's not as much need to - plenty of options from my home airport of MAN
2) The decline of BA as a carrier of choice: Short-haul: probably as good as Easyjet but think they are superior (not a good mix) Long-haul is incredibly average and since they have started charging to choose seats EVEN IN BUSINESS CLASS, I have tended to avoid as a matter of principle.
3) The risk of a connecting shuttle being canceled at the drop of a hat is another powerful reason to avoid BA.

But overall Heathrow is not a 'hell-hole' - people need to update their social references. CDG is a far far worse experience IMO.