corporate-wage-slave

No change there, you have always had a conformance in that direction, though it is not necessarily 35 minutes, it could be as low as 19 minutes, or even lower in certain situations. You can of course get your boarding pass online, by App, at the departing airport, in the lounge (etc) well before getting to T5. 1 hour 40 minutes for the connection is ample, the actual gate to gate time is about 40 minutes on a reasonable day.

Going landside means going down to arrivals level via either badge protected door and stairway, or more usually via a lift, again badge protected. Arriving and departing passengers are separated to prevent illegal immigration, amongst other things. They are only escorted to the front of the UK Border area.

CUPPSIT

Once you are in the departure lounge at any LHR terminal there is no way to get out on your own. Someone needs to escort you over to the arrivals area of the terminal so that you can join the queue for passport control.

This segregation of departing & arriving passengers is (I believe) a DfT regulation

Disco Volante

I'm sure I'm being stupid, but why can't a segregated departing passenger (who then doesn't fly for whatever reason) leave the departure area himself via a suitable exit? Why does he have to go to the arrivals level or mix with arriving passengers?

shorthauldad

Plenty of airports offer an "airlock" door which lets you exit the departures area by giving you a one-way route into the arrivals area.

If you're allowed to do this with an escort at T5, surely a one-way/air-lock door would do just as well? There's also the T5C "trick", which is hardly a big secret.

Getting from departures into arrivals isn't "illegal immigration" - you have to pass through the standard UK Border checks.

corporate-wage-slave

Ponder two hypothetical brothers, one flying domestically and with UK right of abode, another flying internationally, with no right of entry into the UK. The other issue is the Right to Fly stuff, so some staff intervention is ideally needed for anyone leaving airside.

shorthauldad

Someone did say something about "if you lay the bl**dy terminal out properly in the first place" on the previous page

So, who decided that it was critical that Domestic pax had full access to all the airside shops? We are all now paying for that decision

If it's a serious issue, is it now impossible to trick the system by staying on the transit at T5C?

What actually happens when you request an escort landside? Who does the escorting, and what questions are you asked / what documents are checked before you are allowed to leave the departures area?

What happens if you fail to make your gate on time due to falling asleep in the lounge?

corporate-wage-slave

In both cases you would need a member of HAL to walk you down to the UK Border, after taking you off Ready to Fly. I don't think there is a massive interrogation. There used to be an hourly, on the hour, pantomine for smokers gasping during long connections, though they don't encourage that any more. People have to leave all the time, generally for very good reasons, including whole aircraft loads when there is a late cancellation or the need to get medication.

Disco Volante

@:-) Do you mean passengers connecting at T5 and without the right to enter the UK could enter the country without going through border control?

shorthauldad

I wonder if that phrase was used in any planning meetings when T5 was being designed ... ?!

So, given that "people have to leave all the time", how about a simple and efficient way to do it? Preferably one not requiring an escort...

Arsey00

When I was a smoker I left every airport I connected through apart from Copenhagen, and that was only because I hadn't yet figured out to leave myself long connection times. I went through passport control, out through one-way doors with enormous signage, and back in through security, exactly as if I was any other arriving pax and any other departing pax. Those that needed info on me were perfectly able to get it, and I was unable to avoid giving it to them. These seem to be unrelated issues to conformance.

My intention isn't to argue with the employees doing their best to give us the explanations they've been given, but to disagree with the logic of said given info.

stifle

That isn't correct. At T1 if you are on a domestic/Ireland flight you can exit without restriction. And I think there is a route through to flight connections as well which would take you to the border control, if you're flying elsewhere.

layz

That's correct. Also c-w-s mentioned previously there's a way out of T3 too without being escorted.

I'm not sure there's a way out of T1 international unescorted, but I do know that from T1 international departures you can access the FCC (in T5 you can only access the FCC on the arrivals track) so in theory you could always get the bus over to T3 and exit there.

stifle

No need for the bus. When you get to the T1 FCC you just follow arrivals and clear passport control.

leaveamessage

Its been a very long time since i have flown from it, but at T4 if i remember correctly there was a way to immigration via the signs for the multi faith prayer room and through a couple of doors - No escort required.

layz

So if that's the case T5 is the only one that needs an escort, although in that case you can still manage it on the train as long as there's nobody kicking people out at T5C.