Author’s note: After 9/11 there was a massive downturn in air travel. Well, it looked like a massive downturn at the time. What was Heathrow’s response? Build a new terminal!
Stephen Byers today warned of massive job cuts in the airline and airport industry and confirmed that he had put the development of Terminal 5 on the fast-track to “take up the slack” in newly redundant air workers. “It is obvious to anyone that the UK is falling behind in the big, empty airport stakes” explained Mr Byers from the cavernous interior of Terminal 4 at Heathrow. I mean have you been to Charles de Gaulle, JFK or even Schipol Airport recently. They’re completely empty. But look at this place” he yelled, pointing at a solitary figure in the far distance. “It’s teeming with people. We need to get our priorities sorted out”.
Mr Byers then went on to outline his plans for Terminal 5 and boosting the airline industry in general. “We shall be instituting a ‘hop-on, hop-off’ system of flights with jets circling the airport continually, ready to land and pick up a passenger at a moment’s notice. Rather than waste valuable time with constructing a new terminal, we shall simply rename Staines as Terminal 5. And we have taken the concerns of local residents about noise very seriously and will be forcibly repatriating them and replacing them with deaf people. If they don’t move, after a couple of years with these continual round-the-clock flights they’ll become deaf and stop whinging, anyway”
Sex and Drugs and Growing Old 