Steve Fitzgerald wrote:
In message .com,
David of Broadway writes

Fair enough. It would have been nice if (a) TfL had informed the
airlines well in advance and (b) the airlines cared and were willing to
pass the information on to their customers. Had I known before booking
my flight, I would probably have flown out a day earlier to avoid the
issue.

BAA (Who own Heathrow Airport) will have set the timescales as it's they
who are building the T5 extension. I'm sure they were fully in the loop
as to when this was likely to happen.

True. Which makes the lack of information to intending airline
passengers even less excusable.

Perhaps LUL/TfL only had definite confirmation a few weeks ago that the
date would happen though? We only had confirmation at work about 3
weeks ago that the new timetable would happen on 17 September and there
were posters put up from then.

I first found out about it when I stumbled across TfL's planned outage
PDF. I don't remember exactly when that was, but it was some time
between when I booked my flight (in mid-July) and when I left for London
(on 6 August).

Granted, the PDF did say that it was subject to confirmation.

Having flown out of T4 myself a few months ago whilst this blockade was
on, I have to say the journey from Hatton Cross to T4 (and the one to
T123 would be similar) was no worse than the merry jaunt around
Amsterdam Schipol to change planes. It took me about 10 minutes extra
on my journey, hardly worth getting excited about in the great scheme of
things. YMMV.

Well, I can see a few major differences between the two outages:

1. If my A-Z is correct, it's a much shorter trip by road to T4 than to
T123.

2. T4 alone serves many fewer passengers than T123 combined. Some
potential T4 passengers might even have shifted to T123 airlines to
avoid the issue.

3. Some T4 passengers have been staying on the Tube to T123 and then
using Heathrow Express. Obviously, that isn't an option with this
week's outage.

4. The T4 outage has been going on for a while and is advertised on all
maps, including the ones on the trains. There weren't even any signs on
the trains about the T123 outage, so there was a good deal of passenger
confusion.

Also, I'd guess (correct me if I'm wrong) that you were traveling light.
I wasn't, and from the sizes of the bags on the bus, neither were many
others. I doubt your transfer at Amsterdam involved an unavoidable
climb up 33 steps with all of your luggage! (Yes, there were a few
porters, but not nearly enough for the crowd.)
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA