Heathrow Airport Reviews 

This complaint is about the official taxi rank at Heathrow Airport terminal 3. However I suspect all the terminal taxi ranks at Heathrow operate in the same manner.

We arrived late at night at Heathrow T3 from Marseille late in early June. Due to confusion over parking, our car was actually in T5 Long stay car park.
We were unable to catch the T3 train link to T5 in time so decided to
get a taxi.

When we arrived at the taxi rank, the steward on duty asked where we
wanted to go and I explained. He was very negative straight away about
this which was confusing. Straight away he said "well they dont
normally like to go in there". I had to explain that there is no
charge for drop offs in long stay, though surely he knows this? He
then proceeded to tell every cab driver that came along where we
wanted to go with the addition "you dont have to take the fare!" I
have since discovered that licensed cab drivers are not allowed to
refuse a fare from a paying customer. If it happens to you, photograph their license in their windscreen and report them.
This was very unsettling situation as we did not know how we were going to get back, late at night. I'm not certain why they did not want to take us, I can only surmise it was not a big enough
fare for them. So greed basically!

My question is why does the steward, who was very sarcastic towards us and who works for Heathrow Airport not support airport customers?

In the end we had to order an Uber and lug our luggage back into the terminal up to the short stay car park. Not pleasant after a long flight.

I contacted Heathrow Airport directly about this issue through their process but they failed to even acknowledge my complaint.

While in Heathrow Airport you often hear the announcer asking everyone to treat their people with respect. How about Heathrow Airport management treating their customers with some respect?

Extremely rude staff at the security gate. Gave me unclear instructions then 3 staff members ganged up on me and repeatedly shouted at me for getting it wrong. I apologised repeatedly and the issue was resolved promptly - but that didn’t stop them speaking to me in an extremely uncaring and cruel manner. They told me the assistance gate was somewhere else even though I did not have a disability lanyard. I do have neurodivergence but that should not matter, any customer treated as I would should be absolutely appalled at the shocking way I was spoken to. The bag check in is also horrendous. Does not make things easier, in fact the process is much slower because it is hard to understand. Everybody seemed confused by the system. Taking too long means that it times out and I’m not sure if my bag will even arrive safely. Other staff were decent and helpful, but the security gate staff were intolerable. There should be more rigorous customer service training to ensure this does not happen. Ruined my experience practically as soon as I arrived. Horrible.

On the last three arrivals at LHR, baggage marked "priority" arrived at the carousel last - in one instance, after a two-hour wait.

Their website advises that porters can be hailed or pre-booked for groups by email in advance, and paid for eaier with cash or card.

Hailed? It's easier to find a needle in a haystack.

Pre-booked by email in advance? You *always* get an automated-reply saying that pre-booking is impossible, despite what their website says.

Pay by cash or card? On the last two times we've managed to find a porter, they only accepted payment in cash. I wonder where that cash goes.

The trouble with companies who have a monopoly is that they become lazy, incompetent, and inefficient. Customers cannot vote with their feet or dispute their share of the landing fees that are included in the airline ticket costs.

Fast track at Heathrow terminal 3 is a complete nightmare. Next time I see I am flying from Terminal 3, I will cancel the trip.

The scanning machines are dodgy and the staff are incapable of operating them. I had to wait for 15 minutes for a bag to be searched because the machine could not recognise a book for note taking. It seems like these new scanners are not working properly or the staff don’t know how to operate them.

The staff are pretty useless and mill about aimlessly.

Feels like a 4th world airport. To call it 3rd world would be to give it too much credit

Worst airport experience ever! While in security line I noticed a small child (maybe 4) a few passengers in front of me with her parents at the bins packing in their belongings for xray. She was singing softly as she helped her parents, and even those passengers coming up behind her. She had a sweet dance in her step, obviously oblivious to the stress of the moment and those around her (including me) all enjoyed the very precious moment. Two minutes later we all watched in horror as her terriffied screams rang out throughout the security area. She was fighting furiously as she was being "wanded" by a woman dressed completely in black from head to toe in a hijab. Her attire included black latex gloves and she was grasping a black wand which she fought to place over every inch of the little girl's clothing. As the child screamed, cried and fought violently to get away, the mother picked her up in an attempt to console her. But the lady was relentless and continued to scan her as she literally climb up her mother's body in an effort to get away from the scary lady. I might add from my viewpoint the woman could have simply been scanning merchandise with as much emotion as she showed. She madeno effort to calm the child just business as usual. It was quite upsetting for everyone to witness. And I thought to myself "is this seriously their protocol?" I understand the need for the security, but why when this child was so terrified, why didn't somone else step in and say let me try? So much for a positive travel experience for this family and about a third of the customers in the security area! A minute later it was my turn as orders were grunted to me at the foot xray machine. I was still shaken. And I admit a little irritated at the way the whole thing was handled.I saw the woman in black talking to one of her coworkers, she was in earshot, and she was talking about how she wasn’t the cause of the child’s violent reaction, the child had been having a bad day (like she had nothing to do with the scene). No self awareness. I interjected "It was probably your clothing that scared the child and not necessarily you." And in that instant, this woman was on attack. She asked me loudly "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" I repeated, "I think maybe the fact that you are all dressed in black, with black gloves and that big black wand might have appeared scary to a small child". She answered that it wasn't about her, the child was having a bad day before i touched her (I'd call that severe denial) and I answered, "the child was just singing and dancing at the bins". She got very close to me and said “so you think I frightened her because of what I’m wearing? It's not the black that you have a problem with is it?" I was dumbfounded. Huh? What is she trying to insinuate. Her skin color? It was no different than mine. Things went down hill from there. She turned and walked away. I was told by another employee who had been in earshot of the conversation, to stand still, and that I may not retrieve my bags. When I asked why he answered:” she said you have disrespected her culture”. What? An exchange with him ensued and in the end, he said, (a recurring theme) you can't talk about stuff like that here. Anyway to move on, after about 5 mins of standing around in the security area, I was notified by a very nice gentleman from admin (after he asked, and I gave him my version of the story), that she was filing a descrimination complaint against me. The man then confiscated my passport and boarding pass and directed me to another area where I was forced to wait for "an officer" so that I could be interviewed. I was in total disbelief that this was happening. During the time I was sequestered to the back room a few people had made brief contact, and had alluded to the fact that “you can’t talk about that kind of stuff here”
And I couldn't help wondering what if the religous clothing had been a traditional nun's habit? I went to catholic primary school and those were pretty terrifying! As I sat in the back room waiting, I googled "scary witch costumes" and up popped photos of witches that looked suspiciously like the woman I had so easily offended! But I decided I needed to keep my mouth shut like all good British citizen (I'm American) and apologize, admit that I was being religiously and culturally insensitive, take my licks, and get the F out of that country! And that's exactly what i did. Thankfully I didnt miss my flight!

I just wanted to contact someone regarding a payment for a drop off charge for getting dates wrong.

Try calling numerous times for hours but never can get hold of them. Emailed and they will get back within 5 days. Never got back.

Worst customer service ever!

The immigration line takes far too long, and some officers look at us with suspicion and attitude, as if we're criminals—even though we've come here legally and with good intentions.

Very unchild friendly arrivals long queues no family lanes 1 hour wait time two desk open arrival

The airport is filthy. Airport in Africa are far more sterile and clean. I am shocked by the cleanliness of the airport. Take for example the toilets, cleaners are present yet all around the urinals are full of urine. The toilet walls have blood stains, poo stains and boogers/ mucus. People are filthy but this can not be controlled. Cleaning standards should be way more better managed and the staff should stop chatting and being lazy and clean. I am disappointed that the UK airport is filthy.

Heathrow terminal 3 - Very few of the Power sockets and USB sockets on the chairs seem to be working.
Please can someone look into it.
This review is just to report the above issue. Thanks.

Otherwise, Heathrow has plenty of food options, water refill stations, gift shops and good Air Con !

This review refers to Departures Terminal 2. The bag drop-off staff member who admitted my family and myself, was particularly rude right from the point we arrived at his desk. He got frustrated by my efforts to follow the instructions provided on screen, saying "watch the video; it's all on the video". When I responded that I see that, and that's what I am trying to do, he replied that he wasn't working for my flight provider, and that if I couldn't proceed, to go and find their desks to get help. It should be noted that there was eventually no issue, and it was a simple mix-up with the family boarding passes corresponding to the baggage being checked. Moreover, I found that the general behaviour of the LHR staff is not as professional as in GTW.

As a frequent traveler worldwide, I’m amazed at the rude behaviors and lack of professionalism of the staff members at security check at London Heathrow Terminal 4. They place you in security lines that never move forward because the staff members in charge are playing around somewhere else instead of doing their job. The posted instructions tell you to take your electronic devices out of your bag, but when I was doing that, the staff member rudely tells me to put everything in my bag. And then the bag got pulled, together with another line of 10ish bags of everyone else, because they told me there were “liquids” in my bag (absolutely not the case), and then due to the negligence and lack of professionalism of their staff members, it takes forever for them to check your bag in person, and what is worse - they don’t even follow the order, the bags that were pulled after mine got checked before me, and when I gestured my dissent together with the fact of my flight already midway boarding, a staff literally threatened me by saying that if I don’t comply with whatever they dictate, they’ll deliberately cause me to miss my flight and lose all the money that goes into my flight ticket (yes, this is her exact wording, and when she had all the time to threaten me, she could have gotten a few other bags checked properly. ). And then when it was finally my turn to get my bag checked, there was no liquid, just an electronic device that I intended to take out from the very beginning that they didn’t allow me to. What a mess and what assholes are these people. I’m normally a calm, meek person who don’t like to curse in public, but with these people even the strongest curse word couldn’t express my anger.

The only thing good is that I didn’t eventually miss my flight, and it is only to God that I should be grateful to. I will try other airports when I have to go back to London again and I sincerely hope that what I experienced today is going to be what all these assholes have to go through each time they travel.

I cannot comprehend why there is such a delay at posting what gate your flight is leaving from, the gate comes up and then you have to run as it states now boarding! When you have toddlers or are elderly it’s very impracticable! Other airports in Europe don’t have this problem whatsoever wrong with the Brits!!

The self service process to check in and drop off bags is the worst experience ever!
Too much waiting time, very confusing process.. very disappointed!

A family of 4 were travelling from Shannon airport, Ireland, to Dubai, with a connection flight ftom Heathrow to Dubai.

As we already checked in all our bags at Shannon , we followed the transfers signs in Heathrow and had to go through security again at Heathrow which is okay.

Eventhough, we had no bags as all were checked in, we were randomly selected on the way out and on our return.

We had our passports, photos and extra scanning done again after the usual body scan at security checkin, on 2 separate occasions on 13th July and on 4 occasions on our return 24th July which is over excessive and unnecessary, whilst some staff were OK, some were rude.

We just scanned our passports and had photos taken, then just after , literally again , with a rude patrol officer waitng whom was extremely rude asked again for our passports and more photos to be taken again , to be asked "are they my 2 children.." , as we travel alot internationally, I have never experienced such rudeness and excessive security checks in all my years of travelling.

To top it all of, after all this unnecessary issues and undue stress , both my children with no bags were checked which is okay but I was not asked for consent on my 10 year old son which is illegal as under age , they should ask for parental consent.

On our return after security, at the boarding gates, again we were asked for our passports, photos taken for the 4th time , im like this is 4th time with no one else asked these requests.

I will never again use Heathrow as a transfer airport with such rude and excessive issues that caused us all undue stress.

I understand security need to do a job but how they interact and communicate with people leaves a lot to be desired, they need to do better and treat people with respect at all times.

As I said , we travel alot and never had any such issues, with Dubai , been so efficient and even fast tracked us as a family if 4 on our arrival as do many other international airports but Heathrow decided to make it difficult with excessive checks even though as said, our bags were checked in avd we were in transit in Heathrow, an appalling experience at Heathrow.

Worse airport experience in 30 years of flying. Flying on American Airlines, we were "checked in" to a smaller waiting area before the crew ever arrived. The space was extremely hot, people were having trouble breathing and there were no bathrooms available. When some of us tried to go to the restrooms after we were told that the flight crew was delayed, we had to try to squeeze past a bunch of people waiting in line in front of the only entrance. When we continued on, we ran into a locked door that would not open. We were literally trapped in a space that was way too hot with no access to any bathrooms.

Terminal 5 is the UK’s main national airport, but is incapable of delivering luggage quickly. So often we wait over an hour for bags. Today 1.5 hours. So much worse than the best international airports. Not a great advertisement for the UK. Fly into city airport if you have any choice.

My friend and I had a terrible experience at Heathrow.

From the outset, basic customer service was lacking. When my friend had trouble scanning her boarding pass, the airport employee responded with, “You’re not scanning it correctly”. In the time it took to scold my friend, she could have walked over and helped her. My friend basically had to make a scene to get help.

We then had a miserable experience at a "tourist information" kiosk that was really a vendor that sold us hop on hop off tickets that turned out to be very hard to redeem.

Navigating Heathrow itself was equally challenging. We were told to go to “Short Term Car Parking” for Uber pickup, yet signage within the lift offered no direction on which level to use. In the midst of that confusion, a “private driver” approached and attempted to charge us £41 to take us to the Holiday Inn down the road.

Major traffic issues around the airport on a Sunday morning. Purchased Long Stay parking via Heathrow services. A 20 minute journey took almost an hour. No one from Heathrow doing anything to manage the congestion around the airport. Bus driver (transfer from the parking lot) made no announcements or updates to the issue. Avoid purchasing Long Stay parking via Heathrow official website

Items were stolen from our suitcase and Heathrow complaints were unsympathetic and unhelpful.