h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is extremely informative, but it also shcokingly biased! Heathrow is the busiest airport in the world on the number of International passengers per year. Furthermore, T4 is not the dump you make it out to be - it is a far sight better than the vast majority of other terminals across the world.

Considering its size and the number of passengers it deals with, Heathrow is a logistical miracle. T5, when it opens in 2 years, will be the toast of British architecture, and will be paramount to Britain's continued economic development. A third runway and sixth terminal are also essential in order to sustain Heathrow's position as the premier airport in Europe - a position that ensures the employment of several thousand people. In fact Heathrow is the single biggest employer of people (that is people working at Heathrow) in Europe.

Heathrow of paramount importance to the UK, especially to London, and should be credited for its numerous positives rather than being attacked because it isn't quite the utopia that everyone expects.

Rhubarb.

Typical of what?

It's both a wave and a partical. Both a logistical miracle, and an unpleasant place to be stranded.

As the entry says, in fact.

Thanks for commenting anyway.

Ben

typical British cynicism! we have one of the best airports in the world, and when we should be pressing ahead with keeping it at the forefront of European aviation we instead slag it off because it isn't quite perfect. there is no airport in the world that is perfect!

Maybe, but even in my limited experience, Schipol and Bilbao are pretty damn close to it. And certainly hugely closer to it than Heathrow is. The problem with Heathrow is that it was never designed, it just grew - it's a victim of its own success, and the way it was 'planned' (ie it wasn't) means it has all the architectural merit of a 1960s bus station or a late 20th century shopping mall.

Well it depends on what you mean by 'best' of course, Deano.

If you want an entry telling all the good things about Heathrow - and as the entry says, there *are* good things to be said about Heathrow, then do check the <./>writing-guidelines</.>, write an entry, and put it into PeerReview

The guide cetainly has a place for an entry on the history and development of Heathrow, and sfaik there isn't one.

Ben

i may well have to do that!

true, other airports are very very good, but if you have a brand new airport built that has to handle about one flight every 20 minutes then its hardly surprising that nothing goes wrong. Heathrow has a flight landing and taking off every 2 minutes.

i would have to agree with you that architecturally Heathrow wins no prizes, bar Terminal 5 which is stunning. But considering how it has developed, the biggest problem is the houses around it. The airport itself functions well enough to still be at the front of global aviation.

It would be great if you would - or two entries, one on the history of LHR, and the other on T5, perhaps.

How many people know that there is a City Farm bang in the middle of LHR, for example?

It *is* a cool airport, and one of the things that makes it so cool is that it has grown up almost piece-meal. Unfortunately that is one of the things that makes it suck to be a passenger there. Schippol and Copenhagen really are better to hub at from a passenger's point of view, even Charles de Gaulle. And I used to be able to land, disembark, pick up my baggage come through passport control and customs, wait for and catch the bus to the car-park, and get onto the motorway at Birmingham in the amount of time it took the plane to land and taxi to the terminal at Heathrow. I timed it every flight I took for a year.

That is because BHR is tiny in comparison in every way. Heathrow is a marvel, but BHR is marvellous, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, I don't hang out in PR much these days, so if you do write that entry, drop by here and say so, will you, Deano? I'd like to see it.



Ben

I started it this morning... should have it in PR by tonight sometime. I might have to postpone a T5 entry until after my exams though!

A4134881 - London Heathrow Airport (LHR)

incidentally i've referenced you're guide entry - hope thats ok!

What a great entry! - This is the entry I'd have liked to have seen in the guide when I was talking (ok... ranting) about the passenger facilities. I think it should be a shoe-in for the edited guide, but I'm no scout. And yes of course it's ok to link to my entry - a good sub should do that for you anyway, so you've saved them some time there.



Ben

It is now on the front page - good effort. In fact I am reading this thread because I followed the front page's links to here and then read the thread about the ommission of the new article and the promise to write it and ...

Life's odd, that's all.

BTW - I will be in LHA in two weeks' time enjoying the delights of T4. I might print a copy of both pages.

Thank you, and enjoy!

I rather miss air travel.

B