Lonsinla

Hi! My parents are flying into LHR via United and have a 1hr30min connection time. I understand they need to go through transfers and have the hand luggage checked again before waiting for their next flight to Frankfurt. I am not familiar with air side transfers for T2. Would it be a quick process?

Do the Lufthansa flights leave near the Lufthansa lounge? Was hoping they have sometime to have a shower and a quick bite before they fly out.

JVPhoto

At a normal place it'll probably take 30-35 min to walk from the UA gate, through the bowels, under the tarmac to security check then BP check to be dumped out into T2A. The LH flights should leave right from there which is just a 1-2 min walk to the lounge.

PBAudit

In addition to the long walk, they will need to go through Security again (part of the transfer section). British security is much slower than TSA. In fact, they make TSA appear to be lighting fast.

The problem isn't going through the metal dectector. Instead they seem to take 3-4 times longer looking as each piece of hand luggage. And they are much more likely to set aside pieces for secondary inspection.

Finally, if your parents arrive when there are other flights arriving, the lines could be long and it could take 30-45+ minutes to get through Security.

Note, if hey have Gold status, they should continue walking to the end (far right), where there is a special priority lane. It isn't well marked/identified which may mean that some Gold status members may be queueing in the regular lanes. It should be much faster.

1:30 connection time may be too short to walk to the main terminal, go through security & immigration and take a shower at the Lufthansa lounge. Assuming it takes 30 minutes to leave the plane, walk to the main terminal, go through Security, this will leave an hour. If there is a shower waiting list, there may not be enough time to take a shower and get to the gate on time.

Hope your parents have good luck on their trip.

Lonsinla

Thank you very much! Do you know if the priority lane applies to business class passengers too?

Lonsinla

thanks!

PBAudit

I believe so. If flying business class on luftansa, I'm sure they could use the priority lane. I would recommend going to the lane first
If by some chance that business class is not allowed they can just go back to the regular queue (which they will walk past).

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lhrsfo

Not my experience on Thursday evening at SFO and Friday morning at LHR. TSA nonsense was 20 minutes with the agents doing their usual shouting at people routine. There was nobody in the T2 Flight Connections security section so I had a choice of lanes and barely broke step as I went through. It was precisely 22 minutes from engines off (UA parked at 49, the furthest possible gate) to the EI gate.

JVPhoto

The last time I flew through LHR was in Feb, I can't remember 100%, I am pretty sure they were still giving out to all business class passengers a little paper info sheet. It has the Gold Track & Arrivals lounge info it which you are supposed to give to the Immigration or Transit Security Gold Track line attendant.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I'm pretty sure some people just glance at the one side about the arrivals lounge and neglect to see that the other side is the fast track pass .

JVPhoto

Hey I won't complain if that keeps my LHR experiences as they have been, which mimic what LHRSO said above, where I've had either 0 or 2-3 people ahead of me in the Gold Track immigration or Transit security line.

Lonsinla

one more quick question if thats ok....their fight arrives in heathrow and they have to fly to frankfurt and onwards to prague on lufthansa. Do they clear immigration at heathrow or will they clear it in Frankfurt or Prague?

kirkwoodj

Transit at LHR, Clear Schengen immigration at FRA, claim bags & customs at Prague

Lonsinla

thanks!

gregcw

Apologies if this is the wrong forum.

I have a last-minute itinerary change. My SFO-LHR roundtrip now needs to return from AMS. Making the change almost doubles the price of the flight. I am considering taking a quick flight on 13 December AMS - LHR landing at T4 on either KLM or BA in order to to catch UA 900. This leaves around three hours from landing to boarding. So, roughly 3 hours on separate tickets to get from T4 - T2 on a Wednesday morning around 8am at Heathrow. I have other options but if this is easy, it's preferred.

Kacee

Do you need to check bags? That would significantly complicate matters, since you'd need to collect them, enter the UK, then re-check them.