My little work trip started at the unearthly hour of 4am when I was rudely awoken by the alarm clock. After dragging myself into some form of consciousness, I was on the road just before 5am. Got to LHR Terminal 5s short stay car park to drop my car with Purple Parking and walked across to the terminal.
This is my first visit to the terminal and I was amazed by the amount of space there was.[:D] After I stopped gawping, I went to passport control as I done online check-in the previous day. There my excitement stopped as an eagled eyed security personnel asked me to put my carry-on case in to the size dimensions box. It was just my luck as the case didnt quite fit in the box, it was 2cms too long![n] I tried to argue that I hadnt had a problem before with putting the case in to the overheads but the security personnel was not having it!
So off I trundled, grumbling on the way back to the bag drop where the BA check-in assistant was surprised that I was checking in a small case. Back to passport control and after having my passport checked, I came to what the mess that it is security. It seemed to take ages to get through, with the long lines snaking this way and that way. Got in a queue that was near the Fast Track lane and my queue was moving a lot quicker than Fast Track queue and I got processed quicker. I think half the problem of the queues is that pax wait until they get to the conveyor belts before starting to undress and put their stuff in the boxes. Maybe a sign thats a few metres from the conveyor belts telling people to get their stuff ready now would speed things up.
Anyway after redressing, I was airside with an hour to play with. I was still wowed with the architecture but there was blinding fact that couldnt be ignored. The problem was the rising sun. At 7am it was glaring in so much that even if just looked in the direction of the rest of the airport, you were blinded.
Anyhow, I looked around the shops, purchasing some noise cancelling earphones that I had my eye on. With 30 mins before boarding I sat near the gate to wait for my manager who was joining me on the trip.
We boarded when called and as there were less than 100 pax on the flight, we pushed back 5 mins ahead of schedule. The flight itself was good with good service from the cabin crew, even the tomato and egg brioche was edible. The views outside of the plane were good as the visibility was clear. We landed early and we were off the plane, collected my bag and out of the airport in less than 15 mins. The company supplied driver was waiting for us and our 3 hour road trip to the Czech Republic office.
All in all, my first impression of T5 was a positive one and I look forward to flying there again.[y]
