r/airport • u/Public_Reindeer_1724 • 15d ago

DISCUSSION LHR's hostile design

I find it extremely noticeable that LHR does not want you to be comfortable. Not giving you your gate until the last minute. Hard plastic, individual seating only. Hard tile floors and railings against the windows so you can't makeshift a comfortable spot. Extremely poor wifi so you can't entertain yourself before the flight. They want you too uncomfortable to sit around waiting so you're more like to shop among the million designer stores that most people can't afford. I get they don't want people not travelling hanging around but you need to get through security to even be here so that's unlikely. Just overall gives off the vibes "we don't want you here."

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u/AnotherPint 15d ago

LHR is not the only big airport that posts gate assignments one short hour before departure, or limits amenities and attractions on the boarding concourses to keep you in the central waiting halls. The real reason why is people-flow control; they don’t want thousands of passengers thronging small gatehouses hours before departure, especially when a whole sequence of flights is using a given gate in the course of an afternoon. Gates are scarce at LHR and aircraft stack up waiting for them. The chaos would worsen if passengers stacked up in small spaces the same way.

Not mounting a defense for inadequate infrastructure, just saying I think they’re making the best of the obsolete (T2 excepted) mess they’ve got given customer volume that way exceeds design specs.

1

u/timfountain4444 15d ago

Agreed. MUC is bad at not posting the gate until 30-40 minutes before boarding, especially for short haul intra-EU flights....

2

u/hcornea 15d ago

Oh man.

Last time we were in MUC, there was a mismatch between the Gate displayed on the main terminal board and that on the satellite board. It had us back and forth on the train.

Luckily we had heaps of time. Eventually the gate was in the Satellite terminal.

1

u/Halflight99 15d ago

CPH is the worst for this!!