acerockstar

I have seen many posts here in the past showing methods of going from T5 to T3 while connecting airside at LHR. Most of these posts were pre-covid so I just wanted to see if anyone had any recent experiences of doing this method? Will the staff be strict with itineraries and is the route "back" out of T3 still open?

I have around 7 hours in LHR and wanted to visit the CX/QF lounges before my onward flight to MAN (galleries in T5 was rammed on my outbound!)

KARFA

are you connecting, or is this just a LHR-MAN flight?

acerockstar

I am connecting from LCA onto MAN

scottishpoet

this should not be a problem.

someone earlier this week said they got stopped at t3 security because the had a t5 boarding pass. They asked to see a supervisor and the supervisor let them in

I suspect any issues will be because staff are new and unfamiliar with what is and is not allowed.

s1362083

T3 security didn't let me through with a T5 boarding pass about 2 weeks ago. I didn't put up a fight and just retreated back to T5

RichieMc

Yeah was me who did this on Monday morning. Other than some pushback from the guy checking BPs before security, couldn’t have been easier. But he radioed in and was told it was fine. To get back, just start retracing your steps and at security (obviously you can’t reverse through security) you’ll see the purple sign for T 3, 4 and 5 connections. 7 hours is plenty of time and CX and QF were oases of calm vs a very full GF lounge.

petter2

Just now got turned away, they called their manager and refused. Security was chaos, took over 40 minutes to get to the fast track boarding pass check.

petter2

And the T5 first wing security was empty! Not a single person in front of me. Shouldn't have bothered with T3.

rosenkavalier

I have an upcoming 7h transit on BA T5 - T5 in F and also am thinking of doing the T3 lounge hop (CX F lounge mainly, also to burn a few calories instead of drinking and eating the whole time at the CCR)
I guess the situation is so dynamic at the moment and based on the previous posts, some have been turned away and some succeeded in entering T3 with a T5 boarding pass. For me, its not so much the risk of getting turned away but more the extra security screening I would have to go through at T3 FCC when I enter. What I want to avoid is passing through the BP checks and then getting stuck in T3 security with no way to abort the adventure and turn back to T5. Or is the screening done at T5A and when I board the bus to T3, I am 'clean'? With the current catastrophe of LHR, this is a make or break, I would say.
If the lines are long and there is no Fast Track for the T3 screening, then I would definitely prefer staying in the T5 CCR for the 7h.
Any data points would be appreciated...!

orbitmic

i don’t want to sound anti-FT trends, and I absolutely don’t mean that as a criticism of you for trying, but I will say that at the moment, I have quite a bit of sympathy for that policy.

Apart from FW, LHR security tends to be an unmitigated mess at the moment, and transfer security particularly so. The fact that a passenger has tonnes of time on their hands does not mean that those around and (more to the point) behind him/her do too. Put bluntly, some of them are about to miss their flights and I’d rather that number was as low as possible within the framework of what’s realistic given (avoidable in principle but not now) disorganisation and staff shortages.

Do I want people who actually need to go through transfer security to catch their plane to be delayed even more than is currently the case to enable those who don’t actually need to clear security twice to do so to lounge hop? To be perfectly honest, no.

That’s not at all a criticism of people who want to do it, I totally understand their logic and would support it in « smooth » times, but right now, I will admit that rather than the FTer with an 8 hour connection and a taste for lounge hopping, I am tending to prioritise the person behind who may have a 1 hour connection, a late arrival plane, and a justified panicky fear of missing their flight.

i fully accept that it is not the long layover passenger’s fault that lhr is so messy just now and so many trips go pear shaped, but quite simply, 1) adding unnecessary security screenings and transfers does make things worse and 2) in crisis situations you have to prioritise somehow, and whilst many priority decisions are tricky to make, prioritising those who need to transfer into a given terminal over those who don’t is about as easy a call as it gets.

now I’m ready to be stoned if you must!

orbitmic

bp check and security screening are done at t3 when you go there, and then at t5 when you go back there - basically the terminal you are trying to enter each time. Both have a fast track, neither of which Thebes to be very fast at all at the moment.

:D!

Are you saying you tried to enter T3 from landside with a T5 boarding pass? I don't think that has ever worked.

If you have 7 hours that's surely enough time to go to T3 and back although it could eat up a significant amount of those 7 hours.

From T5 you take the connection bus to T3 then do the BP check and go through security there. If it looks busy you can abort before having your BP scanned, and get the bus back to T5. When you return to T5 you need to go through security again (or for the first time if you aborted the T3 attempt).

Do not go through security when you first land at T5, if you do that then you will cause a lot of problems when you want to re-enter T5 later.

That said I agree that it is a bit selfish to go through security an extra time unnecessarily in current staff shortage circumstances, when you may be delaying a passenger who has a short connection.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, I'm going to pile in here and say at least for now, going to T3 unnecesarily, purely to get a lounge visit, is an unwise thing to do, to put it as gently as I can. Other words could be used. It shouldn't be thus, and the fault likes with HAL for not taking the appropriate action 6 months ago. But right now you would be going through T3 consuming both bus and security resources best dedicated to those who have no choice in the matter. Moreover when you get to the front of T3's security area, and thus need security staff to intervene, you can see from their perspective how annoying this would be for them, given all the pressures placed on them regarding overtime and holiday working.

So best to not do this for now.

subject2load

I will go further and say that it’s best not to do this at ANY time.

Call me old-fashioned (“my god, you’re old-fashioned”) but I happen to believe that T3 lounges are for the benefit of pax departing from T3, and T5 lounges for those departing T5 ………

I would be quite happy to see a HAL regulation designed to prevent such unnecessary hopping around.

KARFA

I don't see what the problem is normally tbh. It seems perfectly fine to do it in normal times.