Four Shopping Malls Attached to Some Runways

[kevin_standlee]

According to Successful Meetings, something called the Wall St. Cheat Sheet has issued its list of the 10 Worst Airports in the World. Coming in an #6 is London Heathrow, described as "four shopping malls that have been smashed together." The description is slightly harsher than it should be, though; you do go through security before being herded into the central shopping waiting area.

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I've been through Terminal 3 recently and there's no corral system, it's the process the whole airport, and, for that matter, most British airports, of having a central waiting area and not getting people to their gate until boarding time. The gates are smaller and with limited seating and no facilities and the idea is to not have people waiting at gates, especially as the damn things change all the time.

I'll take that over last minute dashes I've had at IAD and ORD to get to the newly assigned gate that they 'forgot' to announce.

While LHR, LGW and others are shopping malls, you can at least find a place to eat and drink and sit down, unlike ORD or many other airports I could name.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Interesting. But do you go through security before heading to the central waiting area, or only afterwards on your way to the gate?

Knowing how things used to be at British airport, I'd guess the answer is that they check your ID and boarding pass at both steps. They did that before there was a central boarding area too.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Security is after check-in and before the shopping area. Much of the shopping/waiting area is taken up with large amounts of duty-free shopping. I don't remember there being another security checkpoint after that other than checking boarding passes.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

They check ID with boarding passes, and they do a secondary security check on boarding for US flights too. But that's more due to the cost the airlines incur if a person is refused entry to the US. They want to make sure that they're not letting anybody through.

Frankfurt is worse, there are multiple security checks including a complete gate check too.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

As is Amsterdam. All the non-EU international gates have full security checks.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

As Kevin says, you go through security to get to the waiting area which is, basically, a shopping mall. They do check ID and Boarding Pass before you board through and they often check boarding pass at the gate.

To be fair, British Airports have been about selling you stuff for a few decades now :)