Grrr. My T5 Rant

London Heathrow Terminal 5 infuriates me every time I use it. For a brand new terminal there is so much wrong with it that I get in a bad mood before I even get near to a plane. It appears to have been designed to encourage the retail experience rather than to get passengers smoothly through. As usual there were no queues at check in yet security took 20 minutes to get through. I almost lost my laptop at security as the snazzy automatic tray took off before I had time to re-pack my strewn items. The last time I went through T5 one of the security girls swore at me as I was fighting my little battle with the pilotless trays. Charming. Once through, passengers have to walk half the width of the terminal to get to the escalators. The departure gate is not showing which means you have to assume the flight will leave from the main terminal.
This entails a 2 escalator schlep to get to the BA lounge, which eventually gets me in a bad mood and have to concentrate to be polite to the lounge staff. I cannot be the only person that feels this way surely? The gate is announced and will leave from an annex terminal which requires five more escalator rides and one tram. The tram incredibly takes almost 5 minutes to complete its carefully orchestrated operation to travel approximately 150 metres, a distance that can be walked in less than 60 seconds. If you visit the lounge in the annex that makes ten escalators in total prior to boarding. TEN! It makes me think of shopping at Ikea – once you get in it is almost impossible to find out where you are until you have passed every item for sale before being spat out by the tills. The flight is full, but I have my usual window seat where I cocoon myself for the next 10 hours. Rant Over