There’s nothing worse than rushing down the escalator to catch your 7am central line train, and being stuck behind someone who doesn’t follow the ‘keep right’ rule.
Then there’s the passengers dashing the wrong way up the clearly sign-posted one-way staircase, battling through a sea of disgruntled commuters.
The signs are there for a reason, to keep the flow moving. But people don’t just struggle to navigate when they’re catching the train, they do it when catching planes, too.
Heathrow Airport’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye announced that his airport has a problem with travellers traversing the terminal incorrectly.
‘One of the jokes I have with our people is that one of the reasons Terminal 5 is crowded, which it’s not actually, is people are in the wrong place,’ he said at an Aviation Club UK event.
‘One of the reasons is that all the British people choose the left and all the Europeans keep to the right. And they do that [in] both directions, so we get everybody crashing into each other.’
It’s not exactly conducive to an efficient travel experience, and the culture clash is something Thomas said he’d witnessed personally, after facing complaints from travellers about over-crowding at Heathrow.
With a flow of 200,000 passengers a day through the airport’s terminals, someone at the aviation event questioned how the airport would handle even more travellers.
The Heathrow boss’ hypothetical answer, was simple. ‘We could change that. We could just make sure that everybody going this way, they keep to the left, [and] if going that way. keep to the right.’
Now, that feels like it would be a grand idea, but that’s all it is at the minute.There are no indications this is a system which will actually be implemented by Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport.
In fact, it’s estimated about 30 million passengers use Terminal 5 each year alone. Regardless, the airport boss said staff were working to improve the flow of passengers by ‘decluttering’ departure lounges, in attempts to make the airport look less crowded.
These measures will include removing phone boxes, seats, and moving the location of information counters.
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‘People [will] feel more at ease, because they can look at it, they can see where they’re going to go, they know where their gate is,’ he added.
Efficiency is key
Moving through Heathrow quickly has now been made easier by the scrapping of its 100ml liquid limit.
Liquids in containers up to two litres can be left inside the bag during security, meaning struggling to fit everything into that single plastic bag is a thing of the past.
Travellers can thank the new CT scanners, introduced as part of a £1 billion rollout, which can capture crispier images through hand luggage.
This goes for all Heathrow terminals, so your travel day just got smoother.
Heathrow expansion at a glance
Heathrow’s new runway could add 276,000 more flights each year, increasing the number from 480,000 to 756,000 annually.
The expansion would create at least 30 new daily routes and serve up to 150 million passengers, Heathrow said.
Here is a breakdown of the £49 billion price tag:
£15 billion – The current airport buildings and services will be upgraded at Terminal 2, including two satellite piers, while the old Terminal 3 and Terminal 1 will be demolished
£21 billion -Used to build the new, full-length, 11,482ft runway north-west of the current airport, and to divert part of the M25 into a tunnel
£12 billion – This will fund the new terminal complex called T5X to allow the increased passenger numbers, baggage handling, airside and landside operations, car parks and transport connections
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