48+ hours in Heathrow

When I arrived here in London's Heathrow airport on--what was it?--Sunday morning, I thought, wow, I love this airport--transfers from terminal to terminal and breezing through security are a breeze. Well, it may be so, but those are not the only issues defining an airport.

Cancelled BA flights left and right, after other
airlines had started to fly again

Snowy and icy weather hit Britain this weekend, and from what I have read and heard and seen, Heathrow was and is totally under-prepared compared to most other airports of this caliber. And British Airways is none the better.

Long, long lines in Heathrow's T5 on Sunday afternoon

Make a long story short: I've been stuck here in London since Sunday, and now it is 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. But there is a silver lining: My flight to Munich is supposed to be on schedule, and my baggage (which has been languishing in the bowels of this huge airport) appears to be in a container marked MUC. I was not the only one who was inconvenienced: According to the newspapers up to 50,000 travelers have been stranded.

I really hadn't expected to be in the catacombs of The Tube on this trip

I don't know whether all of them were given hotel and meal vouchers the way I was. Maybe it was my flying on a (freebie) First Class ticket, maybe it was status, but BA did make accommodations for me. I stayed in two nice hotels (first in The May Fair in central London and then in the Radisson here at Heathrow), I was given generous meal allowances (and boy, those prices here are not the same as in Lubbock!), and I got to sample a few pubs along the way.

The May Fair, in central London, home for night #1

Still, this was a pain in the ass, to put it mildly. Interminably long lines, total lack of communication, few trained staff to assist travelers--it all showed how ill-prepared BA and Heathrow were (even though they knew the weather was coming. Ironically, there was less than an inch of snow outside the entire time. Apparently, both entities got thoroughly reamed eight years ago when a snow event of less than five inches crippled the airport for 5 days, and improvements were promised in the aftermath. Well, that apparently didn't happen.) The few BA staffers that could be found worked their butts off and tried their best, but it was painfully clear how thin they were stretched and how few of them were properly trained to take charge in the face of such a situation.

Central London Christmas decorations

You see all that snow? I don't either!

Festive-yet-empty frigid London near Piccadilly Circus at 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday night

So, now I'm about an hour from boarding. On the one hand I am obviously extremely relieved since there were two flights on two days that were cancelled and I had no idea this morning whether my re-booked flight would actually happen. But at the same time I'm disappointed: Today is Sabine's 60th birthday, and I had planned for a few things that would have required part of yesterday to prepare. Needless to say, there was none of the fulfillment of waking up and looking over and saying: Happy Birthday, young lady! But, in the grand scheme of things and with the wisdom of us who have traveled much over those past six decades, does it really matter? Probably not. Just getting there in one piece does, and all the rest is secondary.

The Pheasant, in Hillingdon, near Heathrow ...

... and a perfectly poured pint

So, I enjoyed the two pubs (The Clarendon and The Pheasant) that I got to go to, and I made the best of my entire forced stay. And then, in the lounge, things were happy once again!

Rock on!

Jürgen