Just a heads up for those traveling through London's Heathrow airport. They just opened terminal 5, the new terminal for British Airways and other international carriers. So far, the baggage problems are horrendous so it might be a good idea to avaoid this airport until they get the baggage issue under control. Alternatively, be a light packer and carry on from the US!

Cheers, Pam

I am flying on Friday Air France to Heathrow, does anyone know what terminal that is? Assuming that it is not Term 5, how much impact is this having on other carriers? Anyone know?
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Helen

Helen,

From what my friends have told me here in northeast England, many of the international flights are now flying into terminal 5. This problem has been on the news for over a week, but I only reported it yesterday since I just returned here after extended stay in the US. Be sure to pack a good carry on bag just in case.

Cheers, Pam

Thanks Pam! Of course I am going with 3 nieces and a sister and there is not a one of us that could go away for a week in a carry on bag! Its a goal, but not there yet
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Helen

Here's an article about Heathrow Terminal 5 from yesterday's newspaper. Sounds awful, but it states that BA is the exclusive user right now:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080401.TICKERHEATHROW01/TPStory/?query=Heathrow

Wendy,
You are correct. Only BA is currently using terminal #5. Last week a news source here in England stated that other international flights might land at #5 which was incorrect. However, I would choose to use any airport other than Heathrow. It is an unpleasant place to spend any time with staff unwilling to offer much assistance.

Cheers, Pam

Current plans are for T5 to be used exclusively by British Airways. The plan was for many of the other arlines to move/consolidate among the other terminals. That may be delayed a bit, since BA has not moved all of its ops to T5, pending work-out of the kinks.

YIKES - hopefully someday Heathrow becomes an airport that passengers don't want to avoid - but it sounds even worse than last summer. Although I have to admit, our experience last year was amazingly trouble free, a few annoying issues, but nothing we couldn't deal with, and from everything I had read, we were prepared for the worst.

Well at least this year we connect thru Munich and Frankfurt - done Frankfurt before and were amazed at how well it went, especially since our flight from Rome was an hour late, and we should not have made our connection but we did (well they did hold the flight since there were about 75 people) and so did our luggage, again we were amazed.

Well major new airports (and terminals) always have big problems - Denver did and so did Hong Kong.

But Heathrow has always had more problems than most. My favorite "lost" bag story - Heathrow to JFK on the Concorde - my bag went to Dubai :D

Funny how these things can change on a dime. We went through Heathrow several times in 2006, flying home, and flying to Portugal and back as well. Crowded, but really no problems at all. I hope they turn this situation around soon.

I guess things are really bad..We all know Naomi Campbell has anger management issues and the and she has been in extensive therapy for them. Terminal 5 seems to have caused a set back! "Naomi Campbell was arrested Thursday for investigation of assaulting a police officer at London's Heathrow Airport, a source confirmed.

According to Metropolitan Police, officers were "alerted to a disturbance" at 5:11 p.m. at the newly opened Terminal 5, where travelers' frustrations have flared due to baggage delays since opening last week."

Andi, fortunately, those of us here don't have the paparazzi following us to record such events! I saw a video of another star who was so overwhelmed (may not have been Heathrow, that she put her small daughter on the luggage card and sort of "charged" through them!

I hope to avoid this airport whenever possible! My daughter lives in England (not London) now, and I visit through Manchester. My landing and luggage retrieval was quite civilized!

Regent booked us thru Amsterdam vs Heathrow for B2B return - I forget why but happy after reading Pam's post

We just returned from our Budapest-Prague vacation.
On the way over to Budapest we connected via terminal 5 at Heathrow and we had no problem with our baggage or connections.
On the way back from Prague, we again had to connect thru terminal 5 and again no baggage or connection problems.
We were very worried about the luggage problems that seem to plague terminal 5 but we had none.
Yes, they still are working on this terminal but that didn't seem to bother the connections.
Have a wonderful trip.