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Aviation History
1987
1987 - 1547.PDF
Heathrow's passenger problems SIR—My Committee is extremely concerned about the number of complaints we are receiving from Irish passengers using London Heathrow Airport. Their main complaint concerns the bussing of Irish passengers to the terminus. This is extremely difficult for old people, and women travel ling with young children. In our opinion it is completely unnecessary, as hardly any Airport in Europe now uses bussing. The second source of complaint is that transit times, as advised in British Airways timetables, are not practical, and inevitably passengers who rely on these transit times end up at their destinations without their luggage. The record for lost luggage is simply appalling, particularly to Terminal No 4. In our opinion a minimum of 2^hr is necessary to ensure luggage arrival. Another complaint is the apparent inefficiency of secu rity. Heathrow is one of the few airports where hand luggage is both X-rayed and searched manually. This searching is very often rough, and has led to many complaints about cameras, etc, being broken. Also there is serious over crowding at times in some of the termini, particularly 2 and 3. Here there can be long queues for security, and even for immigration. All in all, Heathrow Airport is a disaster area for the transitting passenger, partly because of its layout and partly because of mis management. It compares most unfavourably with other European airports such as Amsterdam and Zurich, where transitting can be done in the same building and without bussing. As the British Airports Authority is now going public, it is perhaps time that they put their own house in order at their main airport, and tried to eliminate the mountain of complaints that are coming in. But as the BAA has a monopoly, perhaps it does not need to worry about complaints and effi ciency, only profit-making. THOMAS McDONOGH Chairman Air Transport Users Committee 7 Clare Street Dublin 2 Eire Garry May, public rela tions manager for Heath row Airport Limited, replies: The concern expressed by Mr McDonough regarding the "bussing" of arriving passengers from the Republic of Ireland is shared by my company. Passengers travelling to and from the Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands are subject to Customs, and not Immi gration control. Since Immigration cannot accept a mixture of cleared and uncleared passengers on departure, the time-honoured procedure is that passengers on these routes depart through domestic channels and arrive back through international channels. The arrivals procedure entails taking a bus to bring passengers to a point which bypasses Immigration and not Customs, but the service oper ates without delay, and some passengers have observed that it reduces walking distances. Mr McDonough also raises emotively a number of wide- ranging questions about transit (I think he means "transfer"), security, over crowding, and other matters. I would need several columns of space to reply. Instead, may I issue an open invitation for Mr McDonough and his committee to visit Heathrow so that they can explore these and other subjects with our experts and senior management? We would welcome such a meeting. Wanted: DC-3 dramas SIR—The BBC at Pebble Mill is currently producing a 12-part documentary series on the history of aviation, in conjunction with CBS of America. The series will be a mix of specially filmed material, film from archive sources, and interviews with men and women who have stories and memories of historic events. My research department has already found some interesting people—such as the sole survivor from the R.101 disaster, a witness' to Samuel Cody's first flight at Farnborough, and even someone who flew with the Wright Brothers. We are, however, presently stuck on one area—that of the DC-3. Our particular problem is finding people who can relate stories of flying the aircraft in desperate or dramatic cir cumstances—circumstances in which they could honestly say "But for the DC-3,1 would not be here". I hasten to add that we are not short of DC-3 pilots, but only of those who can recall, specifically, "There I was at 2,000ft with nothing on the clock . ..". I would be particularly interested to hear from non- UK or non-US nationals, as such stories would illustrate the DC-3's worldwide usage. But all contributions along the lines I have indicated will be gratefully received. CLIVE LANGMEAD Senior researcher BBC in the Midlands Pebble Mill Birmingham B5 7QQ Degrees for pilots? SIR—Your explicit editorial of August 1, "Learning the profession," has much to commend it, and echoes exactly what the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators has been saying for the past three to four years. Representatives from the Guild have had meetings, to no avail, with the Minister for Aviation and other UK Government offi cials to seek recognition of pilots as a true profession in order that they may have fully structured careers from the moment of selection^ to the day of their retirement. The Guild has had, and is still having, discussions with several well-known academic establishments with the pur pose of combining a flying training course with a degree or diploma. This has been done in other countries, so why not the UK, which prides itself as being one LETTERS of the leaders in aviation? Tremendous sums of money are expended on air ports, aircraft, and air traffic systems, but there. appears to be one essential factor missing—the selection and training of the pilot, without whom all this expenditure is worthless. The aviation industry has an annual turn over of capital ranking among the leaders in the UK, and is a vital necessity to the coun try's economy. The public have a right to travel by air in the safest possible way, and research and development of machines and systems is a continuous process. However, not one penny of Government money is spent on training the pilot. Why has his profession been singled out? Even though the shortage of pilots and engineers is upon us, it is not too late for a complete review of the requirements and standards of all trades within the avia tion industry to be carried out. Government funded colleges must be established so that people can be properly selec ted, educated, and trained to meet the exacting safety stan dards that are expected of the aviation industry, and to smooth out the peaks and troughs of demands for employees that have bedevil led the industry for decades. CAPT PAUL WILSON Clerk to the Guild The Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators 30 Eccleston Street London SW1W 9PY Short measure SIR—Highland Express claims that its 235-mile Birmingham-Prestwick ser vice is the shortest overland scheduled 747 revenue flight in the world. This is nonsense. Aer Lingus has been flying 747s from Shannon to Dublin and back for years (EI102 and EI104 SNN-DUB, and EI103 and EI105 DUB-SNN daily). Rough measurement with a ruler and an atlas suggests that the distance is 115 miles—less than half that covered by Highland Express. JAMES M. BRYANT 16 Church Road St Marks Cheltenham GL51 7AN FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 22 August 1987 .'«
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