My first Terminal 5 experience

The last time I visited Scotland, I took the train. I was at my destination in about 5 hours - relaxed and refreshed.

This weekend I took a flight as I wanted to be in Edinburgh for a family dinner on Friday night and needed to work during the day. I flew from City Airport - what a pleasant experience! There were no traffic jams getting to the airport, there were no queues checking in, we did not have to walk for miles to get to our gate and although it was busy since it was a Friday night, we got through security really quickly.

The return journey did not go well! I flew from Edinburgh to Heathrow Terminal 5. My first experience of the new terminal. The plane was over two hours late leaving... not a good start. When we arrived at Heathrow, we had to wait for a plane to vacate our stand. When we got parked at our stand, the bridge wouldn't work. We then had to wait until steps and buses were found. When steps and buses arrived, we then had a bus driver who did not know what driving smoothly and carefully meant. We then tried to enter a door at terminal 5 which was not the right one. Eventually we were there waiting for luggage...and hurrah, it did arrive. The journey had taken seven hours! Both BA and BAA had played their part in making this a truely bad customer experience. This is proof enough that what we should be concentrating on is in making Heathrow better ...not bigger. BA and BAA cannot even manage current capacity, so how on earth are they going to deliver a service to almost twice the number of customers.

Also, why don't we invest more in our trains to make them better, quicker and more reliable and then people would much more readily take trains for domestic travelling. The Eurostar is a perfect example of this. When travelling to Paris or Brussels now, I always take the Eurostar. It is quick. It is reliable. It is an enjoyable experience.

Tonight, however, we did get a fabulous view of London at night...from Canary Wharf, over Westminster, Chelsea, Chiswick and Hounslow. Every time I see these landmarks, it reminds me how much I love this city. Like Dr Johnson, I will never get tired of London. It is home.