While the UK's No 1 airport awaits the completion of Terminal 5;  passengers can only hope the sticking plaster holds - Ian Jarrett sees a grim summer ahead.

You know the English summer has arrived because Wimbledon tennis has started and half the country is under water after heavy rains.

Doubtless the headlines over the next few months, as holiday traffic builds into and out of London, will includes a swag of stories about congestion at Heathrow airport.

Things have got so bad that this week Heathrow's chief executive had to apologise to passengers for conditions at the airport.

At times, he said, he saw things in the terminals that made him "cringe".

Tony Douglas's remarks came after the Daily Telegraph disclosed that new immigration controls, doubling the time needed to examine individual passports, will mean British holidaymakers could face long delays before being allowed back into the country.

And that's on top of the tedious security hoops they have to jump through before leaving the UK,
Business leaders and airlines have been fiercely critical of facilities at Heathrow, which handles 68 million passengers a year. It was designed to deal with 45 million.

InterContinental Hotel Group chief executive Andy Cosslett is among business leaders who are fed up to the back teeth with congestion and facilities at Heathrow.

He writes on the IHG website, "My job demands a lot of international travel which leads to constant use of airports. As a proud Brit, it saddens me to the core every time I pass through London Heathrow Airport and see the poorly thought through systems and rudeness that travellers are forced to deal with.

"With 10 million of our guests going through Heathrow every year this is a concern for us.

"It is certainly true that security has to be the number one priority, but this has made travelling through airports a lot more difficult than it should be.

"From my experience of airports across the world I can see which of them have thought about the issues from the viewpoint of the passenger. Those that haven't are forgetting what the hotel business knows only too well, which is that everything you do should be seen as an opportunity to give the customer satisfying experiences and a good impression.

"We work every day to do this and it is a shame that Heathrow doesn't seem to be doing the same."

Log on to the IHG website (ihgplc.com) because Andy wants to hear your opinions about Heathrow.

In a newspaper interview, Heathrow boss Douglas said he airport is bursting at the seams. "Quite frankly at times it is held together by sticking plaster," he said.

"The proposition for the traveller isn't always what we would want and it's simply not good enough."
Heathrow's Terminal Five will open next March to ease pressure on the airport.

Anyone for Spain this year?

IAN JARRETT is based in Fremantle, Western Australia from where he travels frequently in Asia on assignments for travel magazines. He is a member of the BamBoo Alliance, a group of leading travel writers in the region and more articles can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com . He can be contacted at ianjarrett@mac.com