Last updated 19:47, Thursday, 25 September 2008

WELCOME to Great Britain, we hope you enjoy your stay in Terminal 5!

We joked when we heard that our son and daughter-in-law would be catching a connection to Newcastle from Terminal 5 when they were coming on holiday from New Zealand.

We spent months earlier this year laughing at or being embarrassed by the airport terminal that was meant to show all that put the Great in Britain. This was the flagship venture that would make Heathrow the best of the best.

It all went hideously wrong, of course, and in the most embarrassing way. On the first day staff couldn’t even get into the car park because something had gone wrong with the system there.

By the way, has anyone seen the Queen since she opened the terminal? Should we not be worried that she has been left somewhere in the growing pile of lost luggage?

Anyway, we joked that we would have to travel to Terminal 5 if we were to see our son during his six-week stay in Britain, However, there hasn’t been anything on the news recently about Terminal 5 so perhaps it has been working smoothly.

Our family’s first problem started not with Terminal 5, but with Terminal Idiocy.

A man checking in at Singapore discovered that he had lost his passport. His luggage had already been loaded on to the plane. Take-off had to be delayed while the whole cargo was unloaded to find the baggage of the man with the missing passport.

That meant the kids were a little late arriving at Heathrow but they were still in reasonably good time to make their connection to Newcastle barring any problems.

And here we come to Terminal 5.

They walked through the main doors and saw a large bank of counters with the words BA and Check In displayed on notices above.

Stupidly, Andrew and Kim thought that meant they could check in there.

They got to the counter to be told they had to go behind the alleged check-in counters to the electronic ticket dispensers. If they could not use those for any reason, there were check-in desks where they could actually check in. These were situated behind the electronic machines and completely out of sight of anyone coming in the main door.

Anyway, the kids queued, checked out their electronic tickets and returned to the counter for their boarding passes.

The woman behind the counter recognised them as the ones she had sent to the machines but, sorry, their flight was now closed!

By this time, of course, my poor husband was in Newcastle. He’d arrived an hour early, anyway, in case of problems and was forced to wait an extra two hours until the kids caught another plane.

There were no problems there. Staff at the airport were pleasant and helpful – after they had missed their plane – and they were not made to pay for changing tickets or anything.

But both said they could not get over the set-up at Terminal 5.

It is a “silent” airport which means the only announcements are for the very last boarding call for any planes taking off.

While this is great, there are simply not enough notices and certainly not enough clear directions about procedures.

What they have got is heaps of wasted, empty floor space, my daughter-in-law informs me.

Luckily there is a multi-faith worship centre which means that all those who need to, no matter what religion, can go and pray for the patience they need to get them through the ordeal of Terminal 5!

Our airports are the first port of call for people visiting this country and their first impressions of our country are imprinted there.

What a shame that their first impression of the UK is a massive white elephant – a glorious monument to some architect with grandiose ideas and not a single clue that function is more important than features in a working airport.

Unfortunately the kids will be avoiding Terminal 5 on their way back to New Zealand. What a shame; we could have kept them here a bit longer!