Economist Doesn’t Follow Signs At Heathrow: Proof The UK Is Failing?

Economist Noah Smith took to Twitter/X to share his awful connection experience at London Heathrow Airport, and suggests his experience is reflective of the UK being a “failing formerly-developed country.” There’s only one problem with his logic…

Traveler shares awful Heathrow connection experience

There’s a social media post getting quite a bit of attention where a well known economist/blogger shares his awful experience connecting at Heathrow, while flying from Dublin (DUB) to Paris (CDG) via London (LHR). Let me just share the (lengthy) post in its entirety:

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Today, I made the mistake of flying from Dublin to Paris via London’s Heathrow Airport. This was a remarkably stupid move on my part, given that London, and by extension Heathrow, is located in the failing formerly-developed country known as “the UK”.

I almost paid dearly for this oversight.

My layover was 1 hour and 30 minutes. As soon as my flight from Dublin arrived at Terminal 2, I began looking around for my connecting flight to Paris, which was located in Terminal 5. A helpful immigration officer pointed me in the direction of a free train that I could take to Terminal 5. After walking for about 15 minutes through a labyrinthine maze of tunnels, I arrived at this train.

The train required me to get a ticket for the free trip to Terminal 5. After standing in line at a machine, I pressed a button that dispensed this ticket. I then used the ticket to go through a turnstyle. Once on the platform (which was poorly labeled), I discovered — by asking some locals -+ that the trains for Terminal 4 do not actually go to Terminal 5. (This had not been apparent from any signs or other information in the train station.) I would thus have to wait 17 minutes for the dedicated train to Terminal 5.

And so wait I did. About 20 minutes later I arrived at Terminal 5, and discovered that I was in the Departures area. Despite the fact that I was transferring, I would have to go through airport security again. So I waited in line for security, watching other people struggle with the automated boarding pass scanners. Finally I reached the scanners, and when I scanned my boarding pass, it registered an error, and told me to see a British Airways employee. (Sadly, my Aer Lingus flight was operated by British Airways.)

So I went to the British Airways departures counter, and after a while I found the line I was supposed to stand in. I waited 10 minutes in the line, and was finally allowed to see a British Airways employee.

The British Airways employee informed me that I had already missed my flight, since boarding was at 12:15 and it was now 12:17. I argued that boarding would probably last more than two minutes, and that I might still have time to make the flight, whose departure was scheduled for 12:55. She seemed skeptical of this argument, but I finally persuaded her to help me give it a try.

Returning me to the security line, the British Airways woman told me to wait in the line (which would have taken 15 minutes). I begged her to let me jump the queue, and she did, explaining my plight to a South Asian security employee who let me through the rope barrier to the front of the line.

This South Asian man is actually the hero of our story.

When I cut to the front of the security line, a security employee barked at me to get back. The lovely South Asian man then barked at her to let me through, and his confident air of command carried the day. I was let through, and the South Asian man even showed me how to use the security machine so that it would definitely not stop me from entering. He told me to tell his colleagues at the baggage scanner that I was allowed to jump to the front of the queue.

I raced to the baggage scanning line, which looked like it would have taken an additional 20 minutes, and simply ducked under the barriers and cut to the front of the line. I apologized to the employee there and told him my flight was already boarding. He told me that in that case, I had already missed my flight, and it wasn’t even worth continuing. But I told him that his colleague (the aforementioned South Asian man) had instructed me to go through security anyway, and he accepted this and let me through. I had to do an extra scan of my shoes, but made it through OK.

I then ran to my gate, ducking and weaving around various travelers. When I made it to the gate, I found that the flight was still boarding, and they let me through. I then spent 20 minutes standing in line on the jetway.

Naturally, my bag didn’t arrive in Paris.

That sounds really bad, there’s just one problem…

Look, I’ll be the first person to rag on Heathrow, as it’s not exactly my favorite airport in the world, and connecting between terminals can be somewhat annoying. However, as I read this post, something didn’t add up…

If you’re connecting airside at Heathrow, you should follow the signs for flight connections. The purple signs are all over the arrivals area of the terminal, and you’re then put on a bus to get to another terminal.

Instead, it sounds like this guy totally exited the secure area, took the landside train between terminals, and then went through the whole departures experience. That’s simply not necessary.

Now, we all make mistakes, and it sounds like this guy received incorrect information from “a helpful immigration officer,” who (for reasons I can’t make sense of) suggested he should transit landside instead of airside. For example, the below post gave me a good chuckle.

What’s even stranger is the extent to which this guy is doubling down. Okay, the guy shared a terrible experience, and it sounds like this is something he should be able to learn from. If I posted that online and then realized I just failed to follow the signs, I’d say “whoops, I’ll pay better attention next time.”

But this guy is also seemingly not receptive to feedback, which is such a strange internet tactic if you’re going to put yourself out there. Like, when people point out that he could’ve just connected airside, he responds with things like this:

Starting to realize that the reason things don’t work in the UK is cultural. British people respond to reports of dysfunction by spinning fantasies, making excuses, and – most of all – by screeching insults and leveling accusations. No one actually *tries* to make anything work.

And this:

Basically, British people just have zero ability to make anything work right. But they do have the ability to screech at anyone who points this out.

And he’s suggesting that flight connections doesn’t exist for Dublin flights, which is… just not accurate. For example, he says this:

Stories pouring in of similar Heathrow disasters, even as British nationalists desperately screech at me that I’m an idiot for not using an internal transfer system that doesn’t actually work for flights from Dublin

That’s the strangest argument of all, because it’s just patently false. Like, the whole internet is telling him these connections are possible, but he insists that they’re not.

I think there are plenty of valid criticisms of Heathrow, and it’s definitely not my favorite airport in the world, but there’s only one person “spinning fantasies” and “making excuses” here, and it’s the traveler. I’m sorry he received incorrect information (which he only needed in the first place because he seemingly didn’t follow the “flight connections” signage), but it seems a bit rich to draw larger conclusions about the state of the UK based on that…

Bottom line

An economist had a bad experience connecting at Heathrow, with the issue seemingly stemming from him exiting the terminal and going landside, rather than following the airside signs for flight connections.

Okay, people making minor mistakes while connecting isn’t typically much of a story, but he draws this back to the UK being a “failing formerly-developed country.” And when confronted about how flight connections are possible on flights from Dublin, he just claims that’s not true… even though it is? The internet is a really strange place sometimes, if you ask me.

What do you make of this Heathrow saga?