Recently we flew from Manchester to Chennai (India) and return. To minimise long airport transfers we flew out via Doha with Qatar and back with BA via Heathrow. What a mistake that was!
The Qatar flight was excellent, although the connecting plane to Chennai was considered a short-haul and didn't have entertainment. Good food, quality entertainment. Doha airport is huge and incredibly busy even in the early hours of the morning but once we'd been bussed to the terminal everything was smooth with minimal checks, just hand luggage being passed through a scanner. Very efficient. Chennai has a new airport and we passed through Indian customs with little queue or fuss.
Coming back, what a disaster! The BA plane offered us the worst airline food I've ever had (and we used to do cheapie longhauls with Monarch!) The entertainment package was terrible, all the music selections were of bands I've never heard of or cheap "live" sessions culled from the BBC. The films were hardly the latest either. Only minor positive was they came round with water and juice reasonably often.
Heathrow was an absolute nightmare; we had two hours connection to Manchester but barely made it due to all the transit passengers having to go through a full baggage check and search despite having this done at our initial airport. In the long snaking line for security there were some Americans desperate to catch a plane to the States, they were fast-tracked through and they were held up by idiots wanting to check their shoes! If our hand baggage had been flagged for checks we would probably have missed our Manchester flight but maybe not as it was 40 minutes late anyway. At the departure gates there were several crammed together all with flights due around the same time and inadequate seating and no refreshments except an extortionate drinks vending machine I wasn't going to pay £8.88 for a coke! WE couldn't have a drink on the Manchester leg becaaue some blockage in a tunnel at Heathrow meant that the catering hadn't been loaded. At least they hadn't lost our luggage.
Conclusions:
1) Anyone who actually wishes to travel from a regional airport to or from London via Heathrow must be mad. Get the train!
2) anyone who needs a transfer should not use a British airport if at all possible
3) anyone who has a choice of airline should always use the Middle East carriers if at all possible but certainly not BA. Never had ANY problem changing planes in the Middle East.
4) if you want to see third-world squalor, incompetence and ripping off, don't bother going to India, you can see all that at UK airports in abundance
The Qatar flight was excellent, although the connecting plane to Chennai was considered a short-haul and didn't have entertainment. Good food, quality entertainment. Doha airport is huge and incredibly busy even in the early hours of the morning but once we'd been bussed to the terminal everything was smooth with minimal checks, just hand luggage being passed through a scanner. Very efficient. Chennai has a new airport and we passed through Indian customs with little queue or fuss.
Coming back, what a disaster! The BA plane offered us the worst airline food I've ever had (and we used to do cheapie longhauls with Monarch!) The entertainment package was terrible, all the music selections were of bands I've never heard of or cheap "live" sessions culled from the BBC. The films were hardly the latest either. Only minor positive was they came round with water and juice reasonably often.
Heathrow was an absolute nightmare; we had two hours connection to Manchester but barely made it due to all the transit passengers having to go through a full baggage check and search despite having this done at our initial airport. In the long snaking line for security there were some Americans desperate to catch a plane to the States, they were fast-tracked through and they were held up by idiots wanting to check their shoes! If our hand baggage had been flagged for checks we would probably have missed our Manchester flight but maybe not as it was 40 minutes late anyway. At the departure gates there were several crammed together all with flights due around the same time and inadequate seating and no refreshments except an extortionate drinks vending machine I wasn't going to pay £8.88 for a coke! WE couldn't have a drink on the Manchester leg becaaue some blockage in a tunnel at Heathrow meant that the catering hadn't been loaded. At least they hadn't lost our luggage.
Conclusions:
1) Anyone who actually wishes to travel from a regional airport to or from London via Heathrow must be mad. Get the train!
2) anyone who needs a transfer should not use a British airport if at all possible
3) anyone who has a choice of airline should always use the Middle East carriers if at all possible but certainly not BA. Never had ANY problem changing planes in the Middle East.
4) if you want to see third-world squalor, incompetence and ripping off, don't bother going to India, you can see all that at UK airports in abundance