Well for the past 3 weeks, today was the day I dreaded...my return from my European trip from Heathrow (LHR). I had landed at LHR on Thursday morning 10/08/06 in the midst of the first security alert and our plane had been held for about 40 minutes waiting for a gate which I late found out was lucky for us....I watched closely the evolution of the restrictions and whatever. Today was the day.

Now to top off all the misery, tfl had decided to do engineering work today, Wednesday and Thursday eliminating all service from Hatton Cross to Terminals 1,2, 3 as well as the on going disruption to terminal 4...my flight was AA105 scheduled out of LHR at 1155 for JFK.

With all that was going on, I decided to leave my hotel in Bayswater early...like at 0645...of course the fact that if I touched in with my oyster card before 0700 made it an off peak trip and only a charge of £2 as opposed to £3.50...BTW there was talk of disrutions on the Heathrow Express too.

Anyway, sure enough they weren't totally prepared at Hatton Cross...buses to terminals 1,2,3 were slow to arrive and although Hatton Cross is right on the airport boundary, the drive to terminals 1,2,3 underground stop on the bus took about 20 minutes...

But I had left plenty of time...so upstairs to zone B in terminal 3 for AA check in...boy was I shocked...there may have been about 10 people on the queue in front of me...check in was an absolute breeze...normally I travel with an attache case as well as a flight bag in addition to my main luggage and take the attache case and flight bag on board...because of the restriction 1 bag only I had to put some things in my luggage and flight bag I would have preferred to carry on board and only had the most important things in the attache case but well you know you have to adapt.

On to security...had seen long long queues...30 minute wait would be good...right...wrong...queue was moving very rapidly and it took no longer than 10 minutes to go through security...this idea of restricting the size of carry on bags is great...no problem whatsoever so I was in the departure lounge by 0900 with close to a 3 hour wait.

Signs all over the place...you can take anything you buy in the departure lounge onto flights except flights to the USA...don't understand why flights to the USA should be different but....had a diet coke cherry and a poppy seed bagel with mozzerella and tomatoes which served as breakfast...

About 1025 they posted on the board for my flight GO TO GATE 22...of course among the furthest gates from the departure lounge...what was different from my previous trip on AA was that almost everybody was told they would have to undergo the extra wanding and search of hand luggage...perhaps 1 out of 10 was let through (don't know what was in their profile)...but with only 1 small hand bag for everybody this was easy and quickly done.

Boarding a breeze again thanks to not having all that "hand" luggage that really should be checked luggage. Of course this imbecilic no liquids on flights to the USA even went so far for them to close off the coke vending machine in the boarding area for the flight...come on don't you think that is a little overboard?

Anyway flight was uneventful with the usual crappy AA service and the charging for booze and the snack pack instead of the sandwiches served by BA and VS for afternoon tea but thank goodness my suit case and the flight bag showed up on the other end.

I think this restriction on hand luggage is great....too many people have been bringing on luggage that should be checked...so what if these business people had to wait a few minutes at the carousel like the rest of us.

All in all, everything was fine!

We flew out of Gatwick yesterday and it was no biggie. The search business was way less strenuous than advertised.

Arriving at Heathrow on Sunday was the quickest I've ever been through LHR - 40 minutes from touchdown to driving out of the off-site car park.

No problems also at Stansted on Monday & it was quicker getting through checkin / security than normal - and they did provide seats so you could put your shoes on.

Thanks for the refreshing reality checks which is <b>not</b>:

- 3rd or 4th hand report that one get everything confisicated; or

- hysterical posts that say they'll not fly, or go to the UK; or

- asking can I bring this and that...

Well my experience arriving AT LHR on Saturday (AA, T3, 8:30 pm) was anything BUT swell. Plane parked 50 ft from the gate because some nimrod at BAA assigned it to one still occupied by a Pakistani plane that had no tug driver available. Then they switched us to another gate that also had an airplane parked at it, even less ready to push back. I thought the AA skipper was going to organize a boarding party - his comments about BAA's management of LHR were a study in poorly veiled contempt.

My avoidance of LHR is now going into medium-high gear. What a horrible airport.

(Written from the Velasquez Lounge at Madrid - a much nicer place to change planes.)

&lt; (Written from the Velasquez Lounge at Madrid - a much nicer place to change planes.) &gt;

And a good place to spend an hour sitting on the tarmac while they lose your luggage &amp; get sent to 3 different gates in 30 minutes including 2 passes through passport control &amp; security as they didn't realise that non-Schengen flights don't use the &quot;M&quot; gates downstairs.