Gatwick to Heathrow.

[corbennic]

I mucked up when booking our return flights. We are on mco to gatwick landing at 6.55 and the connecting flight is heathrow to glasgow at 11.55.

Is it going to be easy to get between airports and is this realistically enough time?

Argh this is worse than the time I booked our airport hotel for the night we flew rather than the night before!

[MrPenguin]

Is your flight a weekday?
Did you book it as a through ticket or 2 separate tickets?

Honestly, that’s bang on Rush hour so I think you’d need a miracle to make that.

It is possible but a lot of variables.

5hrs but depends how long takes to get through customs and bags at Gatwick and then traffic to Heathrow and then check in/security etc.

[loldis]

There's a few ways to go about transferring between airports. Cheapest would be the National Express coach between the terminals, or a car service is the most convenient. There's also public transport to transfer, but it's a train and two tubes - no direct connection. In rush hour. I'm on a train around that time in the morning and wouldn't recommend it, especially with luggage. Highly unlikely to even get a seat, as the rush hours trains (including Gatwick Express) all run up from the coast so are full by the time the get to Gatwick.

With all going well, I think it's tight but doable using a car service but only one thing has to fall down (delayed into Gatwick, traffic on M25, etc) and you'd miss the connection. I'd either change the flight to depart from Gatwick, or move it to later in the afternoon to be safe.

[PerksP]

I think that should be doable - especially if it is at the weekend. We arrived back at 6.55 into Gatwick last Sunday and were through customs and baggage and in the car by 7.45 am. I know that is unusually quick but the e-passport does speed things up.

I live close to J9 on the M25 so if I were leaving home for a domestic flight at Heathrow at 11.55 I would probably leave home at 10.00.

Even in the weekday I would expect a 6.55 flight to get me home by 9 so that leaves an hour for getting through security and any problems.

[corbennic]

I booked it as a through ticket with BA. It’s a friday morning so will be rush hour. Hm so annoyed with myself.

[Wembleygal]

I use:

batransfer/

[corbennic]

I had a look at that link, it looks good. There are basically no ba flights that day from gatwick to glasgow so that must be why I booked heathrow! Think I’ll look into the car service.

[Procrastinator]

5 hours, even at that time sounds enough to me. It might well take 90mins- 2hr for the journey. But with 3 hours more than that, should be ok. As long as they will put you on the next plane if you miss it due to traffic i would not worry.

[PerksP]

Fridays are the quietest weekday on the M25 - noticeably quieter than any other day of the week. I think you should be fine.

[loldis]

Yeah, you'd even get a seat on the train on a Friday. I don't go in most Fridays now that my company has flexible working.

Checked BA's transfer guide and their minimum recommended connection time between the two is 3 hours. I don't agree with that but if you miss it through no fault of your own, it's their obligation to get you on the next available flight since it's on a single ticket and greater than their minimum.