Heathrow

Unfortunately BA were the cheapest when I booked my flights to London for the weekend to meet S on her return from New Zealand. So I was forced to endure Terminal 5 yet again.

It started the way it always does -- with the self check-in machine throwing up an error and informing me to seek assistance. There was the usual gaggle of ground staff engrossed in a private conversation so I left them to it and headed straight for the assistance check-in counter since there was surprisingly no queue. The woman who assisted me had the patented arrogance and irritation common to most BA staff and with what appeared to be a great effort on her part I soon had my boarding pass and was heading towards the ever-popular customs.

Being a Sunday afternoon the queues were quite light however as is now required I removed my laptop from my backpack, my coat, my scarf, my belt and my shoes and placed them all in trays to be x-rayed. Somehow I still managed to set off the metal detector so I was subjected to the standard pat-down without event. I went to collect my stuff and noted the sign stating 'Do not remove trays', so I grabbed all my stuff and managed to make it to the nearby tables, which had a sign on the top which read 'Please return trays to conveyor'... sigh.

After I had re-assembled myself I headed downstairs to the 4th floor (!) for the departure gates. Fortunately the BA assistant had written down my gate number so I could go straight there to chill-out with my book. Unfortunately she had only written down the number 7, and not specified whether it was 'A', 'B', or 'C', so I wandered around until I found a comfortable couch in front of one the departure screens and passed the time reading. Once it came up I went to the gate and boarded half an hour later without any further problems. The flight was only a third full so I think that played a large part in that.

Arriving back in Amsterdam was painless as always, I was home within 40 minutes.