Airline passenger news and views

This is all about price. Too many companies and too many people shop by price these days. Just take the world of car insurance; the adverts say we can save you £50 or this one is cheaper than that one. There is no suggestion of what you are actually get or whether it is value for the money.

The same applies to travel. We in Britain (it is believed) always want the cheapest. I lived in Germany and they do tend to shop by quality.

Scruffy staff, knowing nothing, caring less are the symptoms of cheap prices and cheap thinking.

Will it get better by itself - no it will not. Can we make it better, well Virgin tried hard and failed, so I worry that it is a tough call.

There was a global poll of airline passengers recently that voted Heathrow the worst airport in the world. The travellers who took part in this survey took almost 250,000 flights between them over the past year. Sadly, Heathrow remains firmly entrenched as the airport the world loves to hate.

I beg to differ James, Heathrow is perhaps the best airport in the world, its facilities are second to none.

Let these people surveyed try any of the main airports in Brazil where you need to be a millionaire to eat and drink and what about Lisbon, JFK and Frankfurt and who in heavens name thought Schiphol better than our own fantastic Heathrow, where else can you get fish & chips and a brilliant pint of Guinness.

Just try Sao Paulo's main airports where they have over 20 million people living, what a disaster they are.

There is certainly a lack of consistency with airline staff. I am a frequent traveller with BA and one thing is painfully clear: The crew quality varies greatly with each flight. On some flights they can be excellent. Smiling, telling jokes and promptly answers every request.

On other flights they can be "zombies", slow, rude or just ignorant. It's a lottery what crew you get on your flight.

I think 'worst in the world' is a little unfair, but the UK travel industry could certainly invest in some effective customer care training.

I agree with Fiona, when i have travelled on trains up to Blackpool i have always had a comfortable jouney and have had no problems with the staff.

When talking about best and worst airports the whole point is throughput efficiency. An airport is a place you want to pass through as quickly as possible.

It is in this core respect that Heathrow falls down appallingly - the automated ticket machines never work and no-one ever bothers to repair things. Likewise escalators, to get you from A to B inside the airport, especially when you're departing, are dreadful.

Consequently you have to allow 4 hours for constant queuing in lines that snake around and around with staff constantly having to pull people to the front of the queue because otherwise they will miss their flights.

This is the essence of Heathrow. No automation, everything done on the cheap in that unique British fashion. It deserves the label.

You cannot campare it favourably to vast populaces like Sao Paolo which have 3 times the local population - that's not fair. It's how long do you have to wait given the number of flights. That's the fairest way.