Connection time Heathrow to Gatwick
 

Is 3 hours sufficient connection time Arriving AA at Heathrow, departing BA at Gatwick? If not what is the minimum safe time.

I believe 3 hours is the official minimum. It's usually plenty of time, but the ring road you will travel on the connecting bus -- the M25 -- can have some of the worst traffic anywhere. If you will be making the transfer anywhere near what might be considered rush hour, 3 hours is cutting it close. Make sure your BA flight is not the last of the day.

Any better the other way around? (LGW--->LHR)

Although exhorbitantly expensive, you could always take the Heathrow Express to Paddington (15 minutes) and then the 705 bus to Victoria, and then the Gatwick Express to LGW (30 minutes). I did it once in just over an hour when I didn't want to risk traffic. About 20 pounds at the time (now about 25).

I've taken the National Express bus many times in both directions between LHR & LGW... http://www.nationalexpress.com/nxairport/home.cfm

The bus ride is about an hour and a half. Three hours should be okay.

I've done it few times an never had a problem,


BUT,

I did Fastrack through immigration,

I did not have checked luggage,

and finally, I knew exactly where to go


If the OP is stuck in the immigration hall for some time because 3 other planes landed at the same time and the OP does not have Fastrack and if the OP has to collect checked luggage, and if the OP doesn't know where to go, THEN.....


3 hours IS NOT ENOUGH!!!


The aboves are all IFs. I would say that subtracting/adding 30 minutes for each if would be the way to estimate the time needed.

The bus ride = 1:15

Another question, I will be landing at LHR on a sunday at 08:05 AM, on a BA flight from Hamburg, coach.

How long should I allow to get to the bus at LHR, so what time should I get the bus ticket for? I'm not really in that much of a hurry, flight departs LGW at 2pm. Thanks.

EDIT: Oh, and not checked luggage (I think) Are BA's carry on rules the same as American's?

The shuttle trip can be as small as 55 minutes on weekends or as long as 2.5 hours in weekday rush hour. Unless you are in weekday rush hour 3 hours is sufficient if as the previous poster mentioned you do not get unduly delayed. I believe they raised the minimum official connection times to 4 hours now.

Go to National Express Site where you can enter the start and end and see the entire list of routes. Now that National Express has consolidated the three or four lines that used to run between the two, there is very frequent service between the two airports.

"How long should I allow to get to the bus at LHR, so what time should I get the bus ticket for? I'm not really in that much of a hurry, flight departs LGW at 2pm. Thanks."

Personally, I'd just buy the ticket at the coach departure rather than in advance; just get the next coach going

"Oh, and not checked luggage (I think) Are BA's carry on rules the same as American's?"

No; they are not. BA allows 1 piece no more than ,iirc, 6 Kg

Dave

You'll be fine on a Sunday, there will be no traffic.

FWIW - the minimum connection was still 3 hours in mid-August, when I last passed through there. Don't know if it's been raised since then.

If you do have checked luggage, you'll have to carry it between airports and then re-check it. But there are special lines at each airport for dropping off bags, so a 3 hour connection still works ---- barring any unusual delays.

Good luck.

Sorry to bump, but where would I get the fastrack. This will be my first time flying AA internationaly in J? Thanks.

On the plane
 

Before you land the FA will pass out arrival cards with a pink Fastrack folder/pamphlet to put it into. You give the pink thing to the customs agent to get into the fastrack lane.

So why is that? I've run into this on all the European airlines I've run into lately. Specifically, why on earth, do the European carriers care how much your carry-on lugguge weighs? I mean, it doesn't matter where the bag ends up, carry-on or checked, it uses the same amount of fuel. Or are the Euro-carriers admitting the Airbus planes they buy have flimsy overhead compartments?

I'm thinking, since the intra-Europe "business-class" seems no different from coach, other than you get to sit at the front of the plane and get a free copy of the Financial Times, this is one of the few value-adds for their "business-class" of service: you get hassled less about the weight of your carry-on than the unwashed masses do in Economy.

I think you'll find it's something called SAFETY.

I know some American's feel it's their god given right to bring steamer trunks on as hand luggage, but it can create serious safety problems (bags falling on heads in emergency manoeuvers, etc..)

Other than safety , there is also the benefit that stopping people bringing their entire possessions as hand luggage, means that there is no trouble finding space in overhead luggage lockers.

On the business class side, although the seats are similar to economy , just wider, the price differential between economy and business is not ridiculous like the US difference between economy and 1st tends to be ime

Dave

That I understand, which is why size restrictions make sense. But the pitifully low weight restrictions do not.

These archaic carry-on regulations predate advent of Airbus aircraft, so that isn't it. Maybe even began when they were still flying L-1049s and -1649s and DC-7Cs transocean (they had open shelves above the seats, you didn't want anything of substance up there!) Whatever, these regs have taken a life of their own, and they are enforced in other places than Europe - try a Qantas flight sometime, you'll see (13lb / 6 kg,) especially if you trave through BNE and have the travel troll there walk over and heft your bag with a gleam in her eye...

But surprisingly, we flew LHR - BRU in BA CW (A320,) and were allowed out carry-ons, as well as SFO - LHR! These were full-size TravelPro rollaboards... they asked if we had checked any bags, we said "no," and on we rolled.

In my opinion and experience, the BA people often
 

enjoy embarrassing Americans who have too much carry on baggage. I'm talking actual glee here. It's their airline and their rule. I stay will within the limit but have stood in check in lines behind people who haven't and watched them get the full treatment. It is fun to watch someone trying to repack bags at a check in counter, up to a point.

The Brits have never enjoyed all the freedoms that we yanks have enjoyed, and I have always attributed their "glee" over the carryon weight issue to their envy of those freedoms. :D

I apologize for going back to the original topic - but I am looking at a flight arriving at LHR at 06:15 am on a Monday, connecting with the only BA flight that day to KRK departing LGW at 9:45 am. Way too tight, or doable?

Tight, with rush-hour traffic on the M25. Worse if you have to hang around LHR to retrieve a checked bag. When I've done this using Speedlink I've given myself four hours minimum even at midday (between rush hours) and it's been a near thing once or twice. If your inbound flight is late, or -- worse -- if you land OT but then sit tight for 20, 30, or more minutes waiting for a stand, as often happens at LHR in the morning, you'll be feeling the heavy stress.

Take the heathrow and gatwick expresses!!!
 

I'd take the trains. Also you can get a 'share a taxi' from Paddington which is where the Heathrow Express ends up in London to Victoria for the Gatwick Express for a fixed price, which may be a sensible idea to do too

Good luck!

More or less. You have to be at the entrance to the FasTrack lane before you reach an agent (immigration, BTW, not customs) to give it to.

When you reach the immigration hall, keep walking along the right-hand wall to the end instead of turning left to enter the queue for the main group of agents. When you have to turn left because the room has come to an end, there will be an agent collecting those pink landing card jackets. Give it to him/her and continue to the FasTrack desks.

One nice aspect of this process is that you get to check out the queue for the main group before you enter FasTrack, so you can go that way if it's short. FasTrack is usually faster but occasionally, since there are just two desks there, backs up when two people have problems and can take ages. Also, if you don't always fly in front, this lets you save the jacket to use on your next economy-class trip, when it might make more of a difference, or to give to a friend who flew in back. (The agent who collects them doesn't care how you got it.)

phooey. are BA's J/F class travelers safety-trained to have 18kg of carry-on instead of 12 or 6 for W and Y??