Until I experienced a few transit flights through Heathrow. Truly the worst airport experience ever. Like so much UK infrastructure it shows its age and the effect of NIMBY’s and anti-central-planning free-marketers.
This comparison is useful. Schiphol’s single integrated terminal always seemed so vast and the distances so great, but in fact the total distance between connecting flights cannot be any greater, whereas the security checking and queuing in and out of transfers between secure and external areas makes the ordeal so much worse at LHR. Gimme Schiphol, or Atlanta, or HK, or Changi any day. Of course the (BA) plan to maximise connections that minimise inter-(separate)-terminal transfers helps those funding such airlines as can justify their own integrated terminal. Come on T5, get it together.
In an age of carbon-footprint-consciousness I guess it’s non-PC to complain about the pains of air-travel, but I am.