Berrisfo

Hi folks, I'm planning a trip in December MAN-LHR-BOS. Connection time at LHR is 1hr 20mins, BA1387 onto BA213. Would love any perspective on if this would be an easy connection to make or if it'd be tight? I live in London and would be up in Manchester visiting family, so as an alternative I could consider getting the train down the day before and leaving straight from LHR.

Radiation Station

Might be a little tight but should be doable. I recently managed DUB-LHR-LAX with a one hour connection but we were commendably on time out of Dublin.

Do you have access to the First Wing? what class of cabin will you be travelling in?

You won’t have to cross the UK border when arriving on a domestic flight, so that saves time (arrivals from Dublin are treated the same).

golfmad

It should be fine but as with all these discussions it might not be! It will depend on whether the arriving flight is on time and the other logistics work as they are supposed to.

How important is it that you take the 213? What would be the consequences if you were to miss it and be put on one of the later flights (203, 239)? If the risk is too great then as you rightly say, you can mitigate it by traveling down the night before.

The fact that there are two other flights that day ought to mean you would have a very good chance of getting to Boston sometime later that day if there was a snafu with your connection.

Only you can decide based upon the context of your travel.

corporate-wage-slave

Normally this is fine, and it may be preferable to adding to a long tiring day. Here's the however. The MAN-LHR shuttles aren't renown for timekeeping for various reasons and so the risk of a misconnect is there. BA will rebook you, either on the VS service or the late BA service BA239. So a big part of this is "what are the consequences of missing this flight and arriving at 8pm rather than 5pm? And a worse case scenario of being a day late? If it's in the nuisance-but-not-earth-shattering category then I'd take the risk, I had a very pleasant and on-time experience in MAN last week. If you're getting married the next day then that's rather different. If you do decide to rebook, unless some other factor applies you will have to get BA to remove the sector and requote the fare. And that may be expensive.

Berrisfo

Great to know, thanks! I'll be in CW. I took a look and originating in LHR is actually £300 more vs MAN so it might be worth me taking my chances (plus it'll avoid the cost of the train etc).

Berrisfo

Thanks for the perspectives everyone; I did notice that there's another flight later in the day - it'd be a tad inconvenient to arrive later in the day but nothing too critical that'd be worth putting myself out for (and out of pocket!) on the other side.

Jimbojumbo

The only thing I would add to this is that if you get down to past minimum connection and you’re still on the MAN flight then once you disembark run (don’t walk) to the Customer Services desk at the base of the escalator to be first in the queue. I did this after my JFK flight was cancelled while on the MAN flight and once I’d pleaded my case re: urgency, got onto the following mornings VS (in UC) and was booked in Sofitel I noticed about 70% of the MAN flight queuing behind me. I think I’d have had less of a chance getting my desired outcome if I’d been customer number 70 vs 1 at the counter.

bisonrav

If it's one ticket and it's outside MCT, it'll sort itself out, but you may be on a later flight or flight combo. Depends on what time you need to be in BOS really.

Jimbojumbo

Yeah I was rerouted on a LGW service 25 hours later. It wasn’t suitable hence the quick trot to sort it. I’d already had a plan B in place just in case. I’m a very anxious overplanner but in that instance it saved a full day of my vacation so was worth it.

Stripe

You don't have to re-clear security when arriving in LHR on a UK domestic flight, correct? I would think 1:20 would be plenty. No amount of connection time can completely insulate you from delays and other operational problems.

KARFA

correct. If arriving on a domestic flight in to T5 and connecting on to any other T5 flight there is no security needed, just a bp check and you are then up in to the airside departures area.

Radiation Station

Was I a bit silly last time I connected DUB-LHR-LAX and went through the First Wing security after walking from arrivals to departures, then?

The _Banking_Scot

Hi

no.
Connecting from dublin , if you went via the flight connections route you would have flight connections security so going landside then first wing would be quicker in most cases.

Regards

tbs

ademanuele

I fly MAN-LHR ~every two weeks and is invariably late. As already mentioned, 1 hour 20 minutes should be enough but do you really want to have the worry? I recently had a similar situation with a MAN-LHR-JFK booking, I called BA and explained that the shuttle flight is invariably late (they knew) and they kindly moved me to an earlier MAN-LHR flight...

stifle

DUB-LHR has not been a "domestic" flight since 1949 or earlier