Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Terminal 5 - how passengers can avoid it and the homeless can find it

Two stories from them mainstream press about Terminal 5 at Heathrow.

New York Times has a quick guide on how to avoid Terminal 5. Is targeted at Americans so will be old news to Brits and EuroCits but brief and interesting nonetheless.

Time magazine takes a different slant altogether - finding a section of society that is actively seeking out Terminal 5. The article - called Heathrow's Down-and-Out Jet Set - tells the story of London homeless (or rough sleepers) posing as stranded travellers to enable them to sleep in Terminal 5. Terminal 5 may not be a good airport terminal (yet) but it makes a great homeless shelter with lots of space, central heating, constant flow through of people, lots of food left behind and clean toilets. Not sure that is what BA CEO Willie Walsh had in mind when signing the cheques to build T5.

photo care of the terminal 5 insider on flickr - though I don't think this is the type of PR he had in mind either

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Here is how we've picked up on T5: we have identified 5 travel destinations still leaving from T1 and sent out a newsletter to our subscribers:
http://www.isango.com/newsletter/T5T1citibreaks/t5debut.html

(I live in Nice and commute to London so very happy that Nice is still on T1!)