Sitting in airports...
...well, you have to allow enough time for problems on the way, especially in our neck of the woods (around the M25 to Heathrow). So... we get here early and find that the flight's delayed by 30min which makes our connection at Madrid a little tight; we should make it, but will the luggage? Still, we have loads of time to reflect on that.
At least we have time to sort out the check-in problems resulting from a failure of BA and Iberia system to talk to each other.
Otherwise... Looking good!
Some thoughts on airports...
...As we're taking fourteen separate flights on this trip it might prove interesting to compare airport experiences across countries. I guess we're going to spend quite a bit of time clicking heels.
Large, bustling airports like Heathrow and Madrid deal with the logistical nightmare pretty efficiently actually and it's quite difficult to see how to process the hoards more quickly.
For the hapless economy class passenger (client) that still means: - leave at least one hour in hand, queue for bag drop, queue for security, wait for gate to appear, travel to gate, queue at gate, board plane, then wait to seat everyone, taxi, queue for take-off. That's a lot of time; is there some system improvement possible? Not sure. Must be. Connections at Madrid (for Iberia at least) are painless, though, despite the high level security check.
Terminal 5 Heathrow isn't bad as airports go; well, look at all those lovely shops. The thing is, I just want to get on a plane as quickly as possible; I went shopping yesterday. There's money to be made though - they're probably hoping for more delayed flights on 2016.
Pity we're having to lug 20kg of hold baggage each around with us; my ideal experience is to turn up at Southend airport on the train with cabin baggage only and the boarding pass on my phone. 30 minutes later we're boarding good old easyJet to Malaga. So small airports are good things - as they proved to be in Peru, even with the inevitable checked baggage. Here's hoping.
Anyway, I'll tot up all the waiting times - something to do while I'm, er, waiting
...well, you have to allow enough time for problems on the way, especially in our neck of the woods (around the M25 to Heathrow). So... we get here early and find that the flight's delayed by 30min which makes our connection at Madrid a little tight; we should make it, but will the luggage? Still, we have loads of time to reflect on that.
At least we have time to sort out the check-in problems resulting from a failure of BA and Iberia system to talk to each other.
Otherwise... Looking good!
Some thoughts on airports...
...As we're taking fourteen separate flights on this trip it might prove interesting to compare airport experiences across countries. I guess we're going to spend quite a bit of time clicking heels.
Large, bustling airports like Heathrow and Madrid deal with the logistical nightmare pretty efficiently actually and it's quite difficult to see how to process the hoards more quickly.
For the hapless economy class passenger (client) that still means: - leave at least one hour in hand, queue for bag drop, queue for security, wait for gate to appear, travel to gate, queue at gate, board plane, then wait to seat everyone, taxi, queue for take-off. That's a lot of time; is there some system improvement possible? Not sure. Must be. Connections at Madrid (for Iberia at least) are painless, though, despite the high level security check.
Terminal 5 Heathrow isn't bad as airports go; well, look at all those lovely shops. The thing is, I just want to get on a plane as quickly as possible; I went shopping yesterday. There's money to be made though - they're probably hoping for more delayed flights on 2016.
Pity we're having to lug 20kg of hold baggage each around with us; my ideal experience is to turn up at Southend airport on the train with cabin baggage only and the boarding pass on my phone. 30 minutes later we're boarding good old easyJet to Malaga. So small airports are good things - as they proved to be in Peru, even with the inevitable checked baggage. Here's hoping.
Anyway, I'll tot up all the waiting times - something to do while I'm, er, waiting
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