ddlovestravel

The first flight of our trip is from Dulles to London with several hours layover and then on a different airlines from London to Nairobi. Do we check our luggage all the way thru or pick it up in London ? I've never done flights where we changed airlines, etc. I'm thinking we would want to check it just to London and then we will know that it at least got that far ? Or do we have a choice anyway?

Bill_H

They will check it all the way thru to your final destination.

Patty

Which airlines? One or two tickets?

Through checking isn't usually a problem unless one of the carriers is BA and you have separate tickets. BA can be a stickler when it comes enforcing this.

Any other combination of carriers and tickets should be fine and I'd through check if possible. Otherwise, you'd have to clear immigration, claim your bags, clear customs, recheck your bags and go through landside security.

sandi

What is several hours? 2, 3, 5? Just getting from one terminal to another at Heathrow can take up a good portion of your layover time.

Check the bags thru to the end. As Patty mentions, it's just too much of a hassle to clear security to baggage, claim bag, recheck and go thru security again. And London isn't the most pleasant airport to be doing this.

If both legs of your flight (IAD/LHR and LHR/NBO) are written as one ticket, the agent should check label your bags straight thru to NBO. Be sure to check the tags - just ask to see them before agent returns bags to you to wheel to Xray/Security. Tags should contain your name, and read LHR (w/flight #) and NBO (w/flight #).

ddlovestravel

ok - thanks ---- our first flight is on Virgin Atlantic and the second on Kenya Airways. The layover is about 7-8 hours. We figure that isn't enough time to go anywhere (London, etc) but maybe twice as much time as we need for a layover. Our return flight has only about 4 1/2 hours - which I hope is about right ? I was just worried about the luggage getting lost somewhere between the two airlines, etc. but hadn't thought about going thru security the second time. Only flown to Heathrow once and that was 13 years ago ! Still trying to figure out what to check and what to carry on. Thanks for your replies.

Patty

You still need to go through security when changing terminals, but you save the other steps. With 7-8 hours, you have plenty of time either way, but I'd still through check.

Remember that you're only allowed one carry on item when going through Heathrow security. That means no additional personal item like a purse, laptop, etc. If you can stuff your personal item(s) inside your one carry on when going through security, that's fine. You can separate the items after security. More info here http://tinyurl.com/gwd4a