Heathrow Terminal 5 debacle
When we left Los Angeles and moved to London nearly 5 years ago, there was something we noted straight away: customer service in this country is poor compared to that in the States. Arranging deliveries over the phone seemed nearly impossible, our BT phone line went down five times in one year and each time it took at least three days for someone to come ‘fix’ it, our boiler broke in our first flat and after three failed ‘fixes’ we gave up and moved flats, call centres close at 6pm on the dot and don’t even think about calling on Sundays… the list goes on.
So customer service isn’t one of the U.K.’s strongest points. Not a surprise, then, that London’s Heathrow Airport has such a terrible reputation. Queues are always long, delayed flights and lost baggage are common, congestion is high, customer service is low, etc.
Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 was supposed to be the solution. The new and spacious terminal, costing 4.3 billion pounds and designed to handle 30 million people a year, opened last week on March 27th. The result? A fiasco which has ‘dented the nation’s pride,’ said the aviation minister. Flights have been cancelled (including my husband’s), 28,000 bags have been stranded, and the new terminal has fallen ‘well short of expectations’.
Is this surprising? Well, to be honest — no. I’m sure this could have happened anywhere else, but it just seems perfectly fit to happen here in the U.K.
Apparently the building is amazingly beautiful. The glassy structure, which is big enough to hold 50 football fields, was designed by famous British architect, Richard Rogers. It is a haven of new technology which is meant to ‘ease’ the stress of travel. It’s beautiful, but at the moment it’s complete chaos.
London is hosting the 2012 summer Olympics, which is only 4 years away. Will the Brits deliver? Or will there be another embarrassing debacle?
-Courtney
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I was caught in this terminal 5 mess!
We were supposed to depart from London on saturday at 3 pm. When we got home on friday night at 10 pm we checked our email and found an email sent by BA at 9pm telling us that our flight had been cancelled.
No phone call, no text messaging… how many people on holidays check their email the night before leaving?
We were on the phone for 45 minuteds wating to speak to customer service, and finally were able to book seats on a flight at 12 noon. We packed there and then, kids asleep… I didn’t go to bed until 2am.
We got to T5 and everything seemed to be working.
We even boarded the plane on time.
But then we sat on the plane for a good 45 minutes, during which apparently workers were loading and unloading stuff from the plane.
We landed only 20 minutes late, but we got only 1 out of 3 suitcases that were checked in. But best of all we did not get our pushchair and car seat that I brought myself till the plane door.
It’s now tuesday night and BA have NO IDEA whatsoever of when and if we’ll get our suitcases back.
My kids have very few clothes to wear, as most of their spring wardrobe was in one of the suitcases that is missing (the other is full of my shopping).
But the worst thing is that my 4 months old daughter does not have a pushchair nor a car seat. But I can’t just go out and buy another bugaboo…..
Having said that… I have to say that UK customer service always seemed decent… you should see the Italian customer services…. that’s appalling!!!
Would like to hear about the french, spanish, greek customer service!!!
My most vivid frustrations of living in the UK for 5 years were dealings with the bank. The whole process of opening an account, my gosh! General attitude of “what are you going to do about it” and a complete lack of initiative on the part of any employees took some getting used to.
In some ways things were better (am I really saying that?!) – we still refer to cards here as our Switch card – but in Australia you can’t use them over the phone, which is a pain as I prefer not to use credit if I don’t have to.
Michela’s comment made me laugh. A dear friend of ours, Jane, married Paolo a Tuscan and moved to Itay about 2 years before we moved to London – so around 1996. I can still remember all the hoops she had to go through to get the various papers she needed to stay in Itay and every time she went, as asked, and the story changed. So many arguments took place and yet that seemed to just be part of it.
Australians have their weaknesses too – generally I think we’re pretty good, but I do think the Americans are very service focussed, sometimes it can even seem to much.
I completely agree that it CAN be way too much in America. Sometimes when I go shopping in the States I just wish the salespeople would leave me alone!
It’s just so funny how different it is here in London where you have to ASK for help.
Also, in America those waiters will fill your water glass up at least twenty times.
It’s amazing what kind of service you get when they’re expecting a big tip (or commission)!
Don’t complain too much about London – customer service is still FANTASTIC compared to the Netherlands, where it is non-existing! In the Netherlands people have such a no-nonsense mentality, part of the calvinistic background I’m sure, that they find there is no way somebody should lower himself into serving somebody else. And fact is, why would they – people in the NL are too cheap to leave a good tip anyway!
(OK, it might not be THAT bad, but still)!
What a drama Michela, how can they have lost a pushchair that you basically brought onboard yourself???
I am not surprised at all with the current state of T5. This is the country where trains are always delayed due to among other things leaves on the tracks, the traffic is always congested, the tube always breaks down etc etc. I still LOVE it though.
And if we’re on the subject of customer service the Netherlands has to be the worst. What ever happened to the ‘customer is always right’??
I got a headache just reading that! YUCK! I hate airports.
Gosh, Victoria, you’re so right – opening up a bank account in the UK is just AWFUL.
AWFUL.
AWFUL.
Really. AWFUL.
Please, the Netherlands cannot be worse than France. I have the feeling it is a national sport here to be rude to customers. I love the quote in the NY Times article I posted the other day where the customer asks the French guy in a shop: “what about the customer is king?” and the guy replies: “We no longer have a king in France.”
The thing here is you only have the extremes. Either people are incredibly helpful and proud of what they do or they have no interest in the client!
[...] past spring my family and I were caught in the Terminal 5 disaster at Heathrow. We left London on day 3 of its (mal)functioning, and when I handed our three [...]