Help! We leave Sunday for Italy-will we have time to see our son in London with a 3 1/2 hr layover in London?
 

We have a 3 1/2 hr layover with British Airways in London at Gatwick, on our way to Naples & then Positano. Would 3 1/2 hrs be long enough to see our son who lives in London? He'd be at the airport. I called BA & they said we'd have to go thru customs and then back thru security to get to our gate. Is this possible to do in a timely manner? Will that leave us time to get to our gate 30 mins ahead of boarding? We've never been to Gatwick so I don't know the layout of the airport. I know it depends on how long the lines are but just wondering if we should try this. Our son will be home in June for a visit but he's been gone 9 mos & we'd love to see him. Thanks for your help.

If your plane lands on time you should be OK. If its substantially late you may not.

I think that you will be fine, as long as you land on time. It should not take more than 1/2 hr to deplane and clear customs as long as you have nothing to declare. Add 45 min on the other side and you should be good for a 2 hour visit.

Forget about Customs: you've presumably checked your bags through, and you'll have your onward boarding pass before leaving the US. You will queue for Immigration. Everything you're going to do will happen inside the same building, the North Terminal. Last time I was there you had to be at the gate 15 mins before take off.

Unless something catastrophic happens, you'll do all this easily, BUT:

Allow 5-10 mins to get from the Customs exit to the entrance to Security for departures a floor and a half above. The queues at this gate are often awful: on a Saturday morning in holiday time, they can be up to 45 mins long. For peace of mind you might want to recce the length of these queues before siting down in a coffee place for a chat.

If you miscalculate, you won't be the only one. It's routine to jump the security queue: indeed there are usually BA staff patrolling the queue calling for passengers on flights close to closing. But you won't make yourself popular with others in the queue for doing so.

Thanks everyone--I really appreciate your help. If our plane isn't delayed we're going to give it a try.