Heathrow Express finally implements sensible prices
 

Heathrow Express now offers advance tickets exclusively online through its own website. Fares start at £10.99 return when booked 90 days before the outbound journey and are valid on any service on the nominated date.

No further discounts are available, such as for Railcard holders.

90 days in advance ?
They're being dragged kicking and screaming into reality.

Intermediate tiers of fares apply 30 or 7 days in advance.

With prices like that, who in their right mind would use the Piccadilly Line. ;)

Or the Ghost Train.
AKA Heathrow Connect.

Those of us who live near Piccadilly Line stations. Getting the Circle Line to Paddington takes forever. So the Piccadilly Line still wins for much of central London.

And a large part of NW and SW London.

It takes me a hour to get to LHR by Piccadilly, but getting to Paddington takes an hour as well and requires 3 changes and 10 minutes' extra walking.

I don't think anything can beat the £1.50 fare.

Heathrow Express is operated by the Heathrow Express Operating Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Heathrow Airport. It's not part of the railway system and not subject to government fares control.

That's what you get when you privatise an essential utility like rail. Rememebr this when you next vote

I doubt I'll have my travel plans for getting to the airport in order 90 days before and most travellers won't either - because most airline tickets are booked within 90 days of travel.

This, like other onerous advance purchase schemes, is mostly a marketing show and will have little applicability to the average passenger and little effect on revenues. Which I'm sure is the idea.

The HEX should cost about GBP10 each way maximum.

In part it's a way of attracting leisure travellers. Many people do book their holidays more than 90 days out and this potentially locks in revenue for a more price sensitive segment.

I had travel booked 90 days out, but it is not at 90 days anymore!

... which it now does as long as you book 30 days in advance. (OK, £10.75 one-way, but £17.50 return.)

The 90-day price is only a little cheaper than the 30-day price -- the 30-day price is half the walkup price.

Eight years from now, when the Heathrow Express concession expires, all this should be different, but even before that I suspect Crossrail will shake up services at Heathrow anyway, possibly leading to more reasonable fares. Even if Heathrow doesn't land up in Zone 6, it may be in a Zone H with something closer to normality in pricing.

At the venture of straying into bad OMNI, I would add that you should also remember, when you next vote, that the nationalised British Rail could never be bothered to build a railway line to LHR - so if we were back in those days there would be no HEX at all.

There will probably be extensive works on the line anticipated for three months' time, hence the reduced prices.....

The whole Heathrow Express project actually started as a 50/50 joint venture between BAA and the Network SouthEast sector of British Rail, however at the time of rail privatisation BAA assumed full control of it (I think by buying out BR's interest in it).