heathrow!!

Yeah, the problem is that the government made a load of people redundant to save money. Then there was a newspaper scare about lax standards of checking so they cracked down, but there weren't enough staff left to do it properly.

IMHO Heathrow is the worst airport for connecting and I am avoiding it like devil cross. Bureaucracy, disorganization and now this. To connect Amsterdam is the best.

It's actually preposterous. The EU lines are as long as non-EU lines (at T5). Sometimes they open the "machine readable passport gates" as well. So just because of that slight option a lot of e.g. Germans (who do not need to carry a passport in order to enter the UK, the German ID card, which looks like a US driver's license, is ok) now carry a passport since only those are accepted by the machines (even though ID cards are much more modern). Up until about half a year ago I thought immigration at LAX's Tom Bradley terminal would be worst in the world. This has now shifted towards Heathrow. Then again I read at Gatwick it must have become equally as bad in the recent couple of weeks...

Once through Heathrow was enough for us, and that was fourteen years ago. That airport is like another planet that hasn't been explored yet. It is, indeed, in outer space.

Have never used it as a connecting point for another flight but have flown into and out of Heathrow nearly 20 times. On different airlines but always from LAX. Never a huge inconvenience. Yes, once stuck on the runway after arrival for 45 minutes then finally bussed to terminal. Fairly long lines at passport control but nothing unreasonable. Frankly if I didn't have to return to LA via LAX I wouldn't. Hands down the WORST airport I have ever been in. EVER! 2 hours in passport control after a return flight from Heathrow last may. 10 stations, 3 of the manned. NONE set aside for crew or folks simply returning home to LA. Lines wrapped around the baggage terminal 3 times. Scottish couple in front of me panicked about getting on their connecting flight to Hawaii. They had an hour and the flight departed from another terminal. Got 4 different answers from 4 different employees. No one cared about them. No one thought about escorting them to the head of the line so they could make that flight. These folks were in their 70's. Very civil but very panicked. I couldn't tolerate the incompetence and raised a ruckus. After nearly 30 minutes they were put on a golf cart with their luggage and transported away. Have no clue if they made their plane but it was very clear to me no one at LAX has a clue or gives a damn about customer service. LAX. Stay away.

Ironically, I've never really had a problem at LHR and I've flown in/out or connected through it dozens of times. I've always considered CDG to be the nightmare airport for connections. However, it sounds like this latest fiasco is a whole new animal. I've never experienced queues down the halls and outside of the immigration area. There is a rather lengthy discussion about this on flyertalk. I fly into Heathrow T1 in mid-May and am hoping that I am not arriving at peak time or that they have resolved their staffing issues by then.

JerryG, One other thing to consider about Heathrow, is that there's a lot of construction going on there at the moment. I connected through there last year, and that involved waits and Bus rides through a maze of construction barriers. With the Olympic crush, I'd avoid it at all costs! Cheers!