Have you walked the tunnel between Heathrow Terminal 5, T5B and T5C?

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• BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

  16 Apr16 April 02:58

  Yes used it a few times just to stretch legs before a long flight.

  Always been quiet with few people about and some may feel a little eerie and even claustrophobic.and whilst there maybe some pictures the majority appears just as in your first and second photos.

  There are some travelators but there is still a heck of a lot of walking to do and if you have any mobility issues I’d just avoid it. There aren’t a lot of chairs down there if you need a break.

  • Lady London says:

    16 Apr16 April 12:28

    I’ve not been there when the travelators were working

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      16 Apr16 April 15:11

      They were a month ago. They are the type that start when needed not running all the time so you need to step on them.

• Froggee says:

  16 Apr16 April 03:35

  What a silly question. In the Froggee household we never walk the tunnel, we run it. Kids, innit?

  Speaking of which, anyone else got jet lagged kids?

• Stu says:

  16 Apr16 April 04:10

  We’ve never once taken the train to or from the B/C gates, nor do we use the travelators down there. When you’re about to spend upwards of 8 hours on a plane, a 15 minute stretch of the legs (if you’re able) can surely only be beneficial? We’ve had layovers of 5 hours between flights so have occasionally walked to the C gates and back get some exercise and earn some lounge calories!

• letBAgonesbe says:

  16 Apr16 April 04:18

  I was travelling to Mexico City a week ago.
  After clearing security, another passenger picked up my boarding pass and passport by accident from my tray, and off he went.
  I am not sure if it was because I was in First, but BA was very helpful in trying to help getting it back.

  A lady at customer services desk informed me that a passenger handed my passport in at gate C55.
  I went to C gates to collect it, but by then the check-in crew left.
  I was told to go back to Customer Services at A gates.
  This is when I realised that the train is one-way only and I would have to walk all the way back.

  There was some life in the tunnel. Had a nice chat and walk with a BA crew on the way, who reassured me all will be well.

  In the end, I had to go back with the train to B gates and a BA staff member brought my passport just before the gate opened.

  Interestingly, I called AMEX to see what happens if my passport won’t turn up.
  They informed me that for this scenario I am not insured.

  2 lessons:
  1. Keep your passport in your bag!
  2. Remember the train is one way only.

  • Jon says:

    16 Apr16 April 06:51

    Very good point re passport in bag. I was always in the habit of keeping my passport in my hand as I walked through the body scanners, but more recently the security staff have insisted it goes in the tray. I did once ask why (as a genuine question, not trying to be snarky) and was told it’s a security risk. A passport… 🤷‍♂️ I suppose one could try to hide a razor blade between the pages perhaps, but wouldn’t the body scanner pick that up? Or maybe passports are prone to exploding under the right conditions? 😉 Not for us to reason why, I suppose 😉 I’d think I’d be less cynical about such things if there was consistency across airports (or even within the same one!) but that rarely seems to be the case. I know of one airport where I’m pretty sure the scanners aren’t even switched on half the time… 🤷‍♂️

  • Thegasman says:

    16 Apr16 April 07:18

    I had a similar issue in Lisbon a few years ago. Sat in lounge with passport & phone on table next to me. Had previous day’s Times that I had finished reading & placed on top of passport & phone. An English guy came over & asked if I’d finished with paper so I said yes & he took it.

    A couple of minutes later I realised my passport had gone (but not phone). Cue search of lounge & then terminal for the chap. BA kindly did a PA on the flight I was due to be on but Easy gate staff refused to ask cabin crew on their flight. Passport didn’t materialise so I had to leave airport & sort an emergency travel document the following day from Embassy.

    Fortunately HSBC Premier paid out for all my additional expenses including pro rata cost of new passport based on lost one having 6 years validity remaining (they suggested this). In my experience HSBC>Amex travel insurance for limits & discretion.

    Passport stays in my pocket or inside pocket of bag at all times now!

    • AirMax says:

      16 Apr16 April 09:56

      Do you think it was a theft or mistake ?

      • Lady London says:

        16 Apr16 April 12:31

        I was just thinking the same. Sounds like a planned theft – you were observed when you put the passport down

  • Lev441 says:

    16 Apr16 April 08:36

    Similar thing happened to me – in my sleep deprived state I somehow lost my hand baggage somewhere between the security and the gate. Cue a frantic dash back to security and the lounge to see if the bag was there (it wasn’t!) – decided to get on plane anyway as was only in Toronto for a few days and could buy everything I needed. Was the last one on the flight and noticed how odd it was that someone else had the exact same brightly coloured bag in the row opposite.

    Cue to the baggage claim at Toronto – saw this brightly coloured bag next to customer service desk – turns out it was mine all along.

    To this day I’ll never know how my bag got on the plane but I was super grateful!

  • The Original Nick. says:

    16 Apr16 April 09:12

    My passport and wallet are always kept in my bag at security.

    • SamG says:

      16 Apr16 April 09:39

      Yes mine too. My wallet was stolen at security at Stansted years ago and they told me it was a surprisingly frequent occurence. I now put everything in my bag before security that doesn’t need to be separately in the tray . Though you do get the odd airport that wants you to be carrying your passport and/or boarding pass through with you

      • CamFlyer says:

        16 Apr16 April 10:15

        I prefer to carry my passport. Some airports insist one carries it, some put one through secondary screening if you carry it (because a terrorist would hold tightly to his/her passport at all times?), some don’t care.

  • NFH says:

    16 Apr16 April 09:41

    On what basis did Amex say that you wouldn’t have been covered? I hope they weren’t relying on the exclusion “Lost, stolen or damaged personal belongings where You have failed to take sufficient care of them or have left them unsecured or outside Your reach,/i>”?

    • LetBAgonesbe says:

      16 Apr16 April 18:16

      They said it was because the trip hasn’t started yet.

      • NFH says:

        20 Apr20 April 12:34

        That’s not a valid reason. The insurance covers breakdown of public transport from your home to the airport, so clearly the trip starts at the point that you leave home, not when you board the aircraft. A flight is only one of multiple parts of a trip.

• HH says:

  16 Apr16 April 05:06

  I prefer this to the train for B gates, but it’s a bit much for C gates. I also have very fond memories of testing these tunnels before T5 opened and getting an unplanned fire alarm, which inadvertently trapped us down there and revealed a major shortcoming with the design…

  • Peter says:

    16 Apr16 April 06:48

    Wait, there are no stairs?

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      16 Apr16 April 08:25

      There’s escalators, there will be emergency stairs somewhere, there has to be for safety reasons. HH must have been on one of the trial days before T5 opened (I also discovered these tunnels on one of these days so they’ve never been a secret to me) so in their case it looks like the trial had identified an issue (either the exit stairs weren’t well signposted or the door leading to them locked when the alarm sounded).

      When T5 opened although the tunnels were accessible by the public their use wasn’t encouraged at all. There was no travelators and the button for that floor used to say staff only. As I was told during the trial that the public could use them I always did. Even without the travelators I could beat the train most times. Around about 2012 they did some work to make them more passenger friendly which mainly involved the travelators and a few wall decorations.

      I can’t remember if the escalators to that level were there originally or added when the travelators were

      • HH says:

        16 Apr16 April 11:03

        Spot on. This was one of the earliest trials before opening, and there was no signage for emergency exits / possibly no evacuation exits built in. The organisers went into a panic because the ‘only’ way out was up into T5A/B/C which is obviously not OK when the source of the fire is unknown, so we were asked to remain in situ as that’s the safest place(!)

        After the alarm turned off, there were many red faces and apologies that this would be addressed before opening.

• Nick says:

  16 Apr16 April 06:59

  Yes, and it was also in 2017. It was a strange experience, especially when there was nobody else in sight, apart from one other person coming towards me from some distance away…it prompted a quick “hi” from both as we passed, which you’d never normally do. A bit like a scene from Dr Who, half expecting a dalek to appear!

• Greenpen says:

  16 Apr16 April 07:13

  Are there separate arrival and departure tunnels or is this the one place passengers just mix? If there are separate tunnels, is it possible to accidentally enter the arrivals one if you got to 5B or C in the departure tunnel?

  • Yorkshire rich says:

    16 Apr16 April 07:49

    Separate, they don’t mix.

• jj says:

  16 Apr16 April 08:17

  I always use the tunnel. On arrival, I use the lifts (faster than the escalators) and walk briskly to get my legs moving after a flight.

  One time I arrived at passport control at exactly the same time as my fellow passengers who took the train. Every other time, I have been the first person on the flight to get there, even from the C gates.

  If you’re in a hurry, the tunnel is definitely the fastest option.

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