Ask your questions about airport facilities or security to Heathrow airport - £150 voucher to be won ANSWERS BACK

[JustineBMumsnet]

Answers are now back, you can find these here .

Being in an airport can be a challenging experience, especially if you’re with small children who just can’t wait to get to their destination. Ahead of the Easter break, when more families than ever are expected to fly abroad, Heathrow would like you to ask your most pressing questions for making a journey smoother for you and your family. Whether you have questions about airport facilities or activities, or you’d like to better understand security measures, Heathrow’s experts - Amanda and Nicola - would like to help answer your questions.

Here’s what Heathrow have to say: “We know travelling with children can come with its own challenges for busy parents, so we are dedicated to doing all we can to helping you plan and prepare for your journey. We have services like complimentary kids’ eat free meals and dedicated play areas to ensure both parents and children feel as excited as possible when they come through Heathrow.”

So, ask Amanda and Nicola your questions about airport facilities or security by posting them below by the 3rd April. We’ll then choose 20 questions for them to answer and post a link to their responses as soon as possible. All who post a question below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £150 voucher (whether their question is chosen or not).

Here’s some more information on Amanda and Nicola:

Amanda West – Customer Operations Manager
“As part of her job , Amanda develops family-friendly services at Heathrow – including baby changing facilities, and dedicated play areas to keep your children busy ahead of boarding.”

Nicola Tibbles – Security Assurance Manager
“Nicola helps to manage the flow of passengers to ensure family journeys are as smooth as possible.”

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

I don't have many questions, just things to point out but I would say air travel is incredibly stressful! We have flown to the US from Heathrow a number of times with DS, now 9. You arrived stressed out from the drive, the M25 and from navigating parking. You are then shifted from queue to queue to queue and then left waiting forever at a gate with very little to do.

I like the idea of free kids meals, as kids airline food in general is awful and we always take a large bag of snacks for flights. I have never been at a ternimal/gate/wherever in Heathrow with a play area so again a good idea. Other ideas could be (and I don't know if these exist already....) a kids app to show where you are in the airport, where you are going, where your gate is, making a game out of queues and endless corridors to gates, what stages in your journey you are at etc. Family toilets. Toilets near departure gates. Places to get water, shops where you can buy milk. Places, seats or whatever to rest for tired little legs (or tired older legs!) For the love of all that is good in the universe, please don't let anyone expand or make permanent that ban on electronics in hand luggage. Don't just only fill the terminals full of high end expensive shops. But really, anything to improve the queues at check in, (online check in doesn't help as either it doesn't work and then you queue anyway, or you just queue to drop off luggage) and at passport checks at departure and arrival. Our DS gets very anxious in long queues and I think the last time we flew back into Heathrow last summer we waited forever, along with all the other families from 2or 3 different flights, who had all been put in the same line, to get through the passport check. Mostly though, airports are daunting, crowded and unfamiliar to kids and exhausting to parents!

What are the rules on using the special assistance lane at passport control? Are you allowed to use them with small babies?

We normally fly from Gatwick - they've got a kids playing area but it's incredibly crowded and hard to keep an eye on the DC. Is there just one play area at Heathrow?

Even going through the family lanes, it's a long slow process and I simply don't have enough hands to hold everyone's odds and sods while we take off shoes, belts etc - is there anything different at Heathrow that makes this easier?

The thought of flying without ipads and kindles fills me with dread. But you do a great job which can't be easy in these times.

A few strategic 'places to safely put children' while parents need both hands would be really handy - particularly for children that are too big to go in pushchairs but too little to walk for too long.

So luggage trolleys with a child seat (like a supermarket trolley) and a couple of safe high chair type options at the security but where parents are quickly trying to take off boots/sort liquids/put iPads in those trays.

Do you have swift evacuation plans from all parts of the airport even check in / boarding etc? These areas can often seem far from an exit

Is there any assistance for lone travellers with a child at all? Can this be arranged in advance- also for children that haven't flown before is there anything that the airport do to put their minds at rest and keep them occupied?

Why are there not plastic foot covers provided so that we don't have to walk on the filthy floor when we are made to take our shoes off going through security? When I asked recently the security staff got really bolschy with me.

They don't seem to understand.

@KittyKat88 we have never had any problems flying with the Trunki booster packs. Average 2-3 longhaul return flights a year, plus connections. Never been raised, except by other parents who want a closer look!!

Please can you signpost really clearly kids play areas. I have started locating the ones in the most frequented airports, but they are often not signed til you are close.

What's your policy on babies going through security in slings? I've had different experiences in different places, and it would make life easier if everywhere did the same thing.

We're flying in May from T2 with an autistic 5yo. I've seen on the website that you're currently looking into changing your special assistance arrangements - will anything new be in place before mid May? Things that would help us would be social stories, fast track through security/queues & somewhere quiet to go if it all gets a bit much. Also, are the disabled toilets open to anyone or will we need to bring a radar key?

One of the hardest things I find when travelling with my daughter at Heathrow is just the carrying of hand luggage and walking around the airport and to where the plane is loading - especially when flying long haul. In Copenhagen they have these small push trolleys where you can load your hand luggage into, and when my daughter was small she could fit in it as well. I found these really useful and easy to manage the airport.
When I came through Heathrow earlier this year (on my own with daughter, two hand luggage bags each / coats etc - I could hardly move the next day as I was so stiff! As you cannot leave your luggage anywhere it makes sense to have something in which you can push it.

So my question is really around what you can do around this.

Queuing / waiting around seems to the most difficult bit (sometimes for adults as well as children!!).
Could there be some way of indicating how long in a particular queue (ie. check in / security / customs etc.) that we are likely to have to wait? Maybe a clock / timer / countdown system. Or something more fun / imaginative for children like traffic lights or other colour coded / creative system....?
Thanks.

There's a play area? Had no idea.
Would it be possible to improve guidance given to people when buying tickets about not only what can go in carry-ons, but also that all your sub-100ml containers, earphones etc will need to be pulled out and inspected separately, and you don't want to find that latter out when your group of 8 including pushchair and grandparents have happily put all their tiny bottles all through all the bags.

Also if assistance is booked, would it be possible to have one truck or assistant going through security, and then another collecting people from a point by the food/loos/water/shops to escort to the gate? People who would benefit from not having to walk so far are put off request help by stories of not being allowed to buy food and drink or having to sit in the gate for two hours.

Is there any assistance for parents traveling alone with young children on arrivals at Heathrow? I am meant to fly back to UK at the end of April, I will be 28 weeks pregnant and travelling with dd1 (5) and dd2 (22 months old) I am dreading dealing with the suitcases on the trolley and dd2 likely to refuse to walk.

my son has autism and finds difficulty in noisy airports. do you have a quiet room where you can wait for flights or a fast check in to help so that he does not get anxious in the queue?. i know some airports are trying to help with this it would be interesting to know for the future. He finds airports a bit overwhelming at the moment.

To those asking about play areas ..... I saw one at T5, near gate A1 today.

In general, with enough time (and hands) departing seems reasonable.

I arrived at 0730 today from an international flight, connecting to a domestic one and spent almost an hour queuing at Border Control. Ironically, my travelling companions had all joked at the length of time to clear US Customs ....... our own is also ridiculous. It's not a laborious process, just the number of officers versus travellers. I'm glad I was travelling on my own. I wouldn't have been impressed trying to entertain small children for that length of time, so early in the morning having probably had a poor night's sleep on a transatlantic flight.

If a woman is travelling on her own with a baby in a carrier, are your staff happy to hold the baby whilst the mother removes the carrier etc? I went through security with my 8 week old and was made to remove my sling which was Cloth only and staff weren't very willing to help me (not Heathrow).

How early do you need to arrive if you've got a child in a wheelchair?

In Hamburg they have introduced free water dispensers airside. That is a great thing. Also have seen them in stuffy disembarking hall in Bergerac Could we have same here?
There are definitely water dispensers airside at Heathrow T5. You can take your empty bottle through security and fill it up on the other side. They are quite well hidden though (I only found out about them from the Flyertalk forum), so you may need to ask a member of staff.

Are you an autism friendly airport? If so what service do you offer for autistic children to make their experience more pleasant. Also do you have disabled changing rooms for older children still needing nappies. There is nothing worse than changing your child on the floor. Last question do you have fussy eater children's meals on the aeroplane Thanks

Are there places to fill up water bottles after security? We love going through airports with the kids... we're frequent fliers as my OH's family are in South Africa, and we go in and out of Heathrow all the time. However, I was wondering about the above as I've never found them, and recently we were flying out of Bergen, Norway, and they had kiddie 'water-bottle filling stations' straight after the kids' security. Excellent plan.

My son has a nut allergy so we carry an epi pen. Is there any issue with having this in hand luggage? It has a prescription label in his name on it. Should I also bring a copy of the prescription?

I would also like to know about the safety of the scanners used, especially for children. Mine are already sensitive to electromagnetic radiation and I would be concerned about the scanners.

I travel alone with my son a lot and the big stress when he was younger was collecting baggage from the carousel. Not sure what the solution is but it was a nightmare trying to hang on to a baby/toddler while picking a case off the carousel. I guess if we could collect the pushchair first that would help!

how do i find family rest area for different heathrow terminal? i tried to ask at airport but even some of the airport crew have no idea.