Cassandra

This has to be one of the more frequent questions here, but would like people's most recent experience transferring between Gatwick and Heathrow. If we arrive from the States to LGW and American Airlines gives us just 3 hrs. to make our plane at Heathrow, am I right in thinking that's not realistic? Ditto the reverse, coming from continent to Heathrow and transferring to Gatwick for flight back to US?

(And would someone remind me whether checked baggage is claimed, carried on your own to the next airport and re-checked or just taken through customs and then transferred for you by the airline.)

cosmic_toadstool

3 hours might be a legal connection, but it is one hell of a mad dash and there is no way on Earth I would choose to travel on this connection. Bare in mind that some overly cautious people try and allow 3 hours for connecting just at LHR!

Unless you have an obscure or ultra-great value connection planned that absolutley necessitates a transfer between LHR and LGW, try and stick to the same airport.

NoFlyZone

I would allow an absolute minimum of 4 hours, and 5 is better.

You schlep your bags yourself.

WillTravel

Here's my July experience at Heathrow. Flight landed on time. We did not have a gate, so we had to use slow-to-arrive shuttle buses to the terminal. We waited 85 minutes to get off the plane (some people in front of us got off earlier, and some people in back of us got off later). We had to walk to immigration, etc. By the time we got up to the tube station, I would say at least 45 minutes had elapsed from the moment we finally got off the plane. So you can see that in this case, it took over 2 hours from expected landing time to even be in a position to even get out of the airport. We did not check luggage.

Based on this experience, I would not allot any less than 6 hours to switch between airports. Had our plane been late, as often happens, we would have been even more delayed.

AAFrequentFlyer

Cassandra,

Are you flying in J or F? That would make a difference. I agree with the above if you are traveling in Y, but the premium classes get Fastrack immigration cards, so that usually means a quick walk through. If no check-in luggage and if you know where to go, I will disagree with the above and say it's very much doable.

Whatever luggage you do have, YES you will have to take it with you.

I just took the bus few weeks ago and it took about 1:15 TOTAL, including waiting for the bis and the drive. The Fastrack and no check luggage helped.

AAFrequentFlyer

A little correction.

The total time from the time the plane doors at LHR were open till the time I walked off the bus at LGW was just about 2 hours. Again, Fastrack, no checked luggage and knowing exactly where to go made it very easy. The 1:15 time I posted above was the waiting for the bus and the actual drive.

Also, remember, if you are buying this trip on ONE ticket and I'm assuming your connection is with BA, then you are protected. Get the 3 hour connection, but in case you don't make it, they will accomodate you on the later flights. If it's a popular destination, BA usually has a flight every hour or 2, so it's not a problem.

Cassandra

K, here it is: we'll be flying coach but upgraded via FF awards -- which means Fastrack into Europe but probably not returning to US because the partner airlines (BA) don't accept the award upgrade. The only possible tweak to that is that DH is currently AA Gold, which I'm told translates to ?Ruby? or whatever on OneWorld. Not sure we should count on that.

We had a horrendous experience just trying to connect between LGW terminals coming from CDG to get to the RDU flight with a 2 1/2 hr. window (shrunk to 45 min. by strike and delays, and AA personnel refused to help us get to the flight -- Continental people stepped in, bless 'em). So I'm extremely wary of that 3 hr. ostensible connection -- can't believe they even list them.

We much prefer to use the AA174-173 nonstops between RDU and LGW (rather than go through JFK), but there don't seem to be any Partner flights from LGW to Rome or Milan; and returning there are connex from FCO or a few other Italian cities to LGW but none arrive early enough to make that 1 pm departure to RDU.

I was trying to find some reasonable LHR connections to avoid negotiating with AA for some acceptable overnight connection because I'm pretty sure they'd insist we go through JFK instead.

AAFF (hello again -- glad Sarasota was for the most part spared in recent meteorological unpleasantness): Do you have any good sense of how AA thinks about that stopover provision 1. regarding the time-boundary limits (1st leg must arrive no more than 23 hrs. before connection or ...?) and 2. regarding existing alternative connections such as JFK?

AAFrequentFlyer

<b>Cassandra</b>.

Why don't you post the particulars (dates, cities, etc) and I will try to see what I can find.

I just did the following:

RDU-LGW-FCO
LIN-LHR-JFK-RDU

I realize you don't want to connect through JFK, but it may be easier than connecting between London airport with a bus.

Here is the itn I was able to put together:

AMERICAN AIRLINES
174 RDU Raleigh/ Durham 11/10/2004 06:50 PM LGW London 11/11/2004 07:00 AM 777


BRITISH AIRWAYS
2542 LGW London 11/11/2004 01:45 PM FCO Rome 11/11/2004 05:10 PM 734


BRITISH AIRWAYS
561 LIN Milan 11/17/2004 08:00 AM LHR London 11/17/2004 09:15 AM 320


AMERICAN AIRLINES
105 LHR London 11/17/2004 11:55 AM JFK New York 11/17/2004 02:40 PM 777


AMERICAN AIRLINES
OPERATED BY AMERICAN EAGLE 4653 JFK New York 11/17/2004 05:30 PM RDU Raleigh/ Durham 11/17/2004 07:10 PM ER3

rkkwan

Totally agree with AAFF. An extra connection at JFK will be much preferred over a LGW-LHR connection.