twoflower

Flying Emirates Brisbane-London via Dubai. Have a choice between arriving at Heathrow or arriving at Gatwick. Is one better than the other for customs queues, transport into city, etc, or are they both pretty similar? Thanks.

afterall

Cheaper to get into the "City" from Heathrow than Gatwick assuming you are talking public transport.

But it's only a few quid either way which is a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of the flight!

I've never arrived in GTW off a long haul so can't tell you about customs clearance.

Is there really no other difference at all? Like you fly from Sydney to Dubai and then ...

Flights leave Dubai at the same time regardless of whether is it LHR or GTW?

I think I'd be looking at other factors.

alanRow

Pick the one that gives you the better flight times / costs and/or convenience for getting to your hotel.

Otherwise for a non-connecting flight there isn't that much to choose between the them - like all major airports that run almost to full capacity all of the time they are miserable places to be

BTW Gatwick is LGW

flanneruk

There are no Customs queues in Britain. Immigration queues for non-Europeans can be tricky to predict, but as a general rule are worst between 0600 and 0900, when there's a huge flurry of widebodies arriving (at both LHR and LGW) from Asia and North America. The key thing is to avoid arriving then if you can. As I understand it, Emirates' LHR arrivals tend to be later in the day that their LGW ones - but personally I wouldn't choose and LHR flight if thast meant a less convenient time out of Sydney or Dubai.

I assume by "city" you mean central London, and not the City (which is what we call the financial district). For most of London, Heathrow's handier, but if you really do mean the City, First Capital Connect from Gatwick takes you right in.

As afterall says: the airport choice is trivial: it's timing and where you want to be in London that makes the real difference.

Kayb95

I've arrived at both (from US) and haven't found much difference in the time it takes to get through Passport Control and luggage reclaim. Gatwick is a smaller airport and a bit easier to get around.

If you are staying somewhere around Paddington or plan on taking the tube into London to save some money, Heathrow would probably be preferable.

If you're staying near Victoria, Gatwick would be more convenient.

But otherwise, I'd just go with the best fare/times you can get.

twoflower

Thanks for your replies. No, there are no other significant differences. Flights leave daily from Brisbance at 2045 hrs and arrive at Dubai at 0600 hrs after a brief stop at Singapore en route.

From Dubai (after a few days stopover if we want) there are about 6 flights a day to Heathrow and 4 flights a day to Gatwick, all spaced more or less evenly throughout the day.

On the basis of your replies, and since we will probably stay in the Paddington area, we will probably opt for Heathrow. But I guess what your replies are telling me is, if our Heathrow preference is unavailable, Gatwick will do almost as well.

Many thanks for everyone's help.

janisj

If you stay near Paddington - LHR does make generally more sense. But is there a reason you want to stay near Paddington?

It is not the most central area and is quite far from most of the sites. Nothing terrible about the neighborhood - there are LOTS of 2 star tourist class B&Bs and it is walking distance to Hyde Park. But otherwise not that much to recommend it.