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

Are body scanners safe for small children to go through?

in case of flight delays do you have facilities for baby milk/food preparation or breastfeding area for mums to use?

Are there any water fountains to refill bottles airside?
Thankfully ours prefer water to sugary drinks, but we resent paying high prices for bottled water, (Which can often have mineral content not advised for you children.)

We have always wondering whether or not dogs can travel aboard a plane, is this possible? Or does this depend on the airline?

I think you need a family aisle, my experience with Heathrow was having to dissassemble a buggy whilst holding a six week old, and told to remove my long boots after I had no buggy to put her in and nowhere to sit down, getting increasingly flustered whilst people in a rush behind me stressed.. Part of security training for staff should probably include unpacking a buggy, child and luggage alone to go through, you need to have had the experience to appreciate it

My experience of airports with young children is that there is a lot of distraction in the main departure area, but if you're told to go to the gate half an hour before boarding, there is absolutely nothing to do there, except wait. At Singapore Changi airport there are mini soft play areas at the gates.

I have noticed airports such as Dubai have pushchairs positioned throughout the airport for public use. Any plans to introduce such services at Heathrow?

Do you have lanes at the baggage xray for families small children? We often get really stressed this point and if it was all families going through the same lane they might be more understanding than business people!

Are there any innocent items that the average family packs which look a bit "suspect" on the scanners and how could we avoid it? I have no problem with security checks but as an adult traveller with friends have been stopped before for eyelash curlers, etc and would so would love to save us all time!

What age do you class as children as mine have always been charged for when passing through? I also have an Aspie here and a quiet room would be fantastic that is geared towards teens

Do any UK airports have an indoor playground? I remember when we went to Fuerteventura they had an indoor one with slides and things. Kept our DC entertained during a hour delay :-)

What food/drinks are available on flights for my kids? What am I allowed to bring on board for themto eat?

I find that my children are getting more difficult in this sort of situation as they're getting older. What have you got to keep older children entertained.

For us we would want to know who quickly we could get though the airport and onto the flight.
And if there was a delay, what options we would have for keeping the children entertained and pacified.

Are there water dispensers or approved healthy snack machines within these play areas and also a child changing room that has a toilet for the parent of older children?

Some great Qs - watching with interest.

There are never enough seating areas in airports! If I've negotiated the tube with a push chair and suitcase I'm going to need a sit down once Ive checked in!

Towser- the bigger airports could learn a lot from Fuerteventura - it was fantastic and time flew by!

Do you have an extra large toilet cubicles for parents travelling without another adult that will have enough space for two or three small children, carry on luggage and even a buggy as well?

It obviously isn't safe to leave either the luggage or very young children outside of a toilet cubicle.

If you don't have facilities large enough to do this, do you have any staff available that could watch the children and/or luggage whilst the parent used the toilet and takes the other child(ren) in?

Could you return to having more check in staff on desks and fewer self check-ins, please? There are no queue systems for the self check ins, making it a free for all in busy times. It's also very difficult to input information into a screen while keeping an eye on a toddler & other young children if travelling alone, much easier to queue in an organised line and hand documents over to check in staff if you're a lone parent travelling with children.

I am very very careful to plan in advance for security, picking out outfits for DC, DH and me with no zips of hidden metal so that the scanner doesn't go off and we can get through security as quickly as possible, but for some reason, I ALWAYS seem to go off and need searched! What are the possible reasons for this, when I'm so careful about not wearing any metal items? I would love to know to be more careful for next time.

It would be great if you could take buggies at the luggage check in desk and then provide little sit and rides or buggies for use around the terminal - this in itself would help keep our little ones amused - What are your thoughts on this?

I have never taken my daughters on a plane but I am planning to do so quite soon - could you possibly tell me what (if any!) facilities there are in the airport to keep children entertained whilst we wait?

Do you have free WiFi and if so is the connection strong enough to stream movies? If not I think it would be a great benefit as kids could keep themselves occupied whilke waiting to check in etc

In my experience the play facilities are never that great because the kids could just easily run out into the busy airport. My husband and I have 3 children under 5 so do not have enough hands to run after each of them. Would you think of making an area which is secure with walls and a door with supervision so that kids can not get out themselves and parents can relax and not worry that their children are going to run off and get lost?