Taylor on Travel

It may not be wise to begin a blog on holiday, but departure gives a chance for gratuitous comment on Heathrow. Naturally, I agree with everyone in the industry that the queues are a disgrace for which BAA is solely responsible. Who would not condemn this foreign-owned monopoly for profiteering at the expense of queue-weary travellers forced to surrender their bottles of Evian?

Except I was through security at Terminal 3 within 15 minutes. The trouble was I still spent two hours at the airport standing in queues. Why? Security at the entrance to departures is just one element of the queuing.

For a start you queue at check-in. In fact, I queued to join the queue for self-service check-in – a nice touch. You queue to join the security queue and then queue to show your boarding pass before joining the security queue proper – a good way to keep those average queuing times down.

Having negotiated security, at Terminal 3 you join the shoe x-ray queue, and from there it’s straight into the passport queue. If I was Michael O’Leary I would probably hire a wheelchair to be whisked through, especially since Ryanair passengers pay for this service.

If there is still time you can queue for a coffee or proceed to the till queue at Boots or WH Smiths. God forbid you need to shop at both. No sign of queues at the toilets yet, but they must come.

Thankfully I had a chance to stretch my legs during a sprint to the gate before joining the queue to show my boarding pass, where I then joined the American Airlines security queue – a 20-minute wait this one, followed by full bag and pocket-emptying and a demonstration that all electrical equipment was in working order. Then there was just the queue to board. All I can say is it beats being blown up.