Panic!! Connecting between Heathrow to Gatwick

[Freehugs]

Hello

I booked a package holiday through British airways which includes a connecting flight and hotel etc.

I land at Heathrow at 08.35 and need to get to Gatwick for my next flight which leaves at 12 with check in/ bag drop off closing at 11.

Having always flown direct from Scotland I’ve never done this before. And I assumed BA’s system wouldn’t let you book something that wasn’t feasible.

So exchanging cash for my trip next month at a different travel company and the travel agent asked about my holiday. She was of the opinion that the connection time is a bit unrealistic.

We will have checked in luggage to collect and have arranged private transfers from Heathrow to Gatwick.

Started to panic so called BA holidays to be told we only have two options 1) we take our chances and hope we make it.
2)we can pay over £900 for our family to get on the earlier flight.

And that if our Glasgow flight was delayed which causes us to miss our connecting flight then BA would then take responsibility.

But if we were delayed by say bagged delays/road works etc we would need to pay for new flights to Punta Cana ourselves.

Please someone reassure me this is doable?

Boarding gates close around 20-30 minutes prior to departure so this whole segment you’ve been sold is unrealistic. Id be on the phone to BA again.

This will trigger the entire booking being re-priced by BA. Which will probably not be in the OP’s favour and may end up costing more than the extra £900!

There's usually a recommendation to be at the gate 20-30 minutes ahead of scheduled departure but I'm not sure actually physically closing the gate/gate lounge that far ahead happens much if at all these days.

Can't you get a train between the 2 airports it's 1h40 and safer than traffic

Knowing both airports well, no chance. We live right near Gatwick and have a flight from Heathrow in a few weeks. We practiced the drive on Friday and got stuck in an awful traffic jam. Now planning on leaving our house at 5.30 instead of 6.30 to make our 10:30 flight.

It’s not a straight train and requires changing in central London. Bit of a pain, especially with luggage.

Wife of a pilot here. I live near Gatwick and he works mostly from Heathrow.
I can tell you now you will not make that from Heathrow to Gatwick. You need to account for flight delays which is always happening in the Summer time. Also traffic on the M25 can be pretty bad. Trains won’t get you there on time either as you need to get tube first then over ground.

"There's usually a recommendation to be at the gate 20-30 minutes ahead of scheduled departure but I'm not sure actually physically closing the gate/gate lounge that far ahead happens much if at all these days".

It happens all the time. Standard practice is to close boarding to passengers at the departure gate 20-30 minutes prior to departure. Tickets will state boarding time.

I know it isn't, mates do it all the time to gatecrash my house (10min from gatwick) but still more reliable than the m25

The only way you stand any chance of doing this is by only taking hand luggage. It's at least an hour between the airports by road. Some flights at Heathrow require a long shuttle bus to the terminal- I was on a flight a few weeks ago where it landed near terminal 3 and we got a bus to terminal 5.

Even if you got to Gatwick before bag drop off closes you still have to get through security and some of the gates are a 25 minute walk. Boarding will close way before 12.

I would get the train down the day before.

It happens all the time. Standard practice is to close boarding to passengers at the departure gate 20-30 minutes prior to departure. Tickets will state boarding time.

It might be standard at some airports, I can"t speak for them.all.

However what you describe certainly wasn't the case when I worked out of both LHR and LGW and I haven't seen it happen at LHR or elsewhere since I retired..the gate usually remains physically open until either all passengers who have checked in have boarded or 3-4 minutes before before STD.

A train really isn’t more reliable the M25. I use Thameslink a lot and they are always getting cancelled or delayed. It could easily be 2hrs regardless what the Trainline says. If you are lucky the M25 could be clear out of rush hour and can be under 1 hr but it’s not guaranteed.

Anyways, this is all academic as the journey doesn’t account for flight delays, picking up and checking in baggage etc. She will not be able to make a car journey from Heathrow to Gatwick either in the timeline.

There is nothing I could check in a bag that would be worth paying an extra 900. If you did not have checked bags and took the tube to st pancras or Farringdon, then the Gatwick Express, without checked luggage, it's very plausible. Even by road (which I know less well) it seems ok without the bag delays on both ends.

The Gatwick Express is from Victoria-
not St Pancras or Farringdon.

There used to be one, a rapid one not the overground or regular south London train network, from St Pancras. Direct to Gatwick, maybe with a stop at Farringdon (vague memory). (Editing, sorry, typos from phone)

You mean Thameslink. There used to be a semi-fast one to Gatwick that didn’t stop at every stop on the way. The Gatwick Express has only ever been Victoria-Gatwick.

@cordeliavorkosigan sorry but why are you trying to give advice when you clearly don’t know.

Could you book easyJet flights from Glasgow to Gatwick? That should be a lot less than £900?

I think I would push back at BA though, there is no way 90% of people would make that connection.

More importantly for the OP, BA operates what they refer to as ‘conformance’ for their Gatwick (and Heathrow) flights. What this means is that if you are getting a BA flight from Gatwick, you must have passed through security AT LEAST 35 mins before departure. If you haven’t, you will be bumped from your flight.

@HundredMilesAnHour

Agree, I suspect the hold bags are the real problem for the OP here - the critical timing would be the cutoff for accepting checked bags, which I think is currently STD minus 1 hour...

If they make that IMHO they should be ok for conformance and getting to the gate.

Not when I got to the gate 15 minutes before departure, I coukd see people queuing in the tunnel and the answer was 'gate is closed'. I missed my flight even though the gate was physically open.

I flew 2-4 times a week until recently and it always says 'gate closing' and 'gate closed' on the screens.

Ok, fair enough if that's happened to you at ceratin airports but that's definitely not universal and certainly wasn't commonplace in my time (30 years plus) going through airports around the world as both a passenger and an airline employee.

The "gate closing" sign was usually a nudge to hurry the last few people along, "gate closed" (where I worked) went up pretty much as the aircraft doors closed at STD.

sadly those days have long since gone.

Things are a lot different these days when it comes to the departure gate and the time the gate closes to passengers for boarding is carefully monitored. Gates at LHR close 20 minutes before departure. On my ticket it specified both the boarding time and latest time you could go through security at LHR (Ba flight). US airports also have similar timelines re departure gate closures.

When people say the gate closes 20 minutes from departure, do you mean that everyone must be on board at that point or queuing in the airbridge after boarding passes and passports have been checked. I suppose so. Meaning you have to have reached the gate check more than 20 minutes from departure or you cannot proceed to the aircraft?

I travel a lot on various airlines mostly Ryanair and I've seen the queue snake around practically up until the departure time, everyone having been there at least 20 minutes before often more, but the queue can take ages to get boarding.

@AttilaTheMeerkat

Sorry to be like a dog with a bone about this issue but it has some relevance to the thread.

Gates at LHR close 20 minutes before departure.

So you are saying if you are on, say, 0800 departure from LHR T5 then the gate will be signed as closed at 0740 and if you pitch up.at 0741 you'll be denied boarding?..and you"ve witnessed this?

I have to say given the departure time is brakes off leaving the gate that's very premature/extreme and won't win friends/customers, especially those on business and or trying to connect.

It's the first I've heard of it..I'm not that long retired, still network with folks who work at LHR, have travelled through there recently and have family who have come through more recently and this really is news to me.