Heathrow T5, outbound

[mc2fool]

In a couple of days time I'll be off on my trip to Orkney, which starts with a BA flight from Heathrow T5, outbound to Aberdeen, then connecting to the LoganAir flight to Kirkwall.

I've generally tried to avoid Heathrow in my life (preferring Gatwick or London City, both more convenient for me) but this time with flight times, prices, etc ....

Anyway, the upshot of that is that it's been a long time since I've flown from LHR, and indeed I don't recall ever having flown from T5, so, anyone been through there recently and can relate the procedures, etc? E.g. how much of a faff is security now? (Belts off? Shoes off? etc etc), and any other surviving T5 hints welcome. Also, I'll be arriving on the Elizabeth Line, so any relevant hints about that at T5 too....

[Lootman]

The Elizabeth line arrives where the Heathrow Express and Piccadilly lines also arrive, a short trip via lifts to the Departures area of T5. That part is easy.

The last time I went through T5 security it was belts and shoes off, laptops out etc. But I read somewhere that they are introducing newer fancier machines so you might get lucky.

Once past security it is like being in a giant shopping centre. There are the A gates right there and there is a good chance that a domestic flight is from an A gate, so you won't need to take the train. Otherwise it is a train to the B and C gates, where there are far fewer services.

If you have access there is a BA lounge at the B gates that is less crowded than the zoo lounges in the A area.

There is nothing pre-Security so no need to spend any more time there than you have to.

[Spet0789]

Terminal 5 is easy and pleasant the vast majority of the time. After peerless LCY it’s the best airport experience in London. No shoes off but belts, liquids and laptops through the X ray machine. Generally works very well.

As Lootman says, Elizabeth line uses the same platforms as Heathrow Express, very easy.

Top T5 tip. Escalators are always slow. Use the lifts instead. Most shops in the main terminal where the A gates are, but perfectly decent coffee / sandwich options in the B / C gate zones (if you don’t have lounge access).

Only gotcha is a hard 35 minute before departure cutoff on going through security. (Which is really pushing it anyway!)

[mc2fool]

Thanks folks. So, assuming you have zero in-airport shopping intentions, how much before your flight would you plan to arrive there? My flight is at 3pm and is from one of the B gates, and I will be checking in a bag.

Re "peerless LCY", beh. Yeah, it used to be great when there was only one flight an hour, either arriving or departing (not both), and fellow travellers who weren't obvious city types smiled and shared the camaraderie of having discovered London's "secret" airport, but last time I went through there it was packed with the great unwashed and their screaming kids...

[Spet0789]

Thanks folks. So, assuming you have zero in-airport shopping intentions, how much before your flight would you plan to arrive there? My flight is at 3pm and is from one of the B gates, and I will be checking in a bag.

Re "peerless LCY", beh. Yeah, it used to be great when there was only one flight an hour, either arriving or departing (not both), and fellow travellers who weren't obvious city types smiled and shared the camaraderie of having discovered London's "secret" airport, but last time I went through there it was packed with the great unwashed and their screaming kids...

Arriving 2 hours before will be relaxed. 1 hour would be doable but stressful. At that time of day the airport will be quiet. I would estimate 15 minutes to drop your bag, 15 minutes to get through security, 15 minutes from security to the B gates.

I fly from City very regularly. Immediately after lockdown lifted it went through an odd “tourist” phase for about six months, jammed with amateurs (!) who didn’t know what to get out at security. I recall a guy in front of me with a rucksack who (I swear) had to remove 7 or 8 containers of liquid from his bag which had been spotted by the x ray machine. That phase is now over and it’s back to its best.

[Lootman]

Thanks folks. So, assuming you have zero in-airport shopping intentions, how much before your flight would you plan to arrive there? My flight is at 3pm and is from one of the B gates, and I will be checking in a bag.

Arriving 2 hours before will be relaxed. 1 hour would be doable but stressful. At that time of day the airport will be quiet. I would estimate 15 minutes to drop your bag, 15 minutes to get through security, 15 minutes from security to the B gates.

You are more relaxed than me. There are always those days at Heathrow where something goes wrong and there are long wait times.

I am probably the wrong person to ask as I get to airports ridiculously early. In fact if I have a morning flight I will stay at an airport hotel the night before. There is the 5-star Sofitel Hotel actually adjacent to and walkable from/to T5, which I am using for a 9:30 a.m. flight from T5 next month, but it is not cheap. There are cheaper hotels at T2 and T4, including a Premier Inn at T4 that I have sometimes got for under 40 quid a night. I avoid the hotels on Bath Road.

But I am very cautious about these things so you should probably ignore me. And I usually have lounge access so can easily fritter away an hour or two.

[Spet0789]

Arriving 2 hours before will be relaxed. 1 hour would be doable but stressful. At that time of day the airport will be quiet. I would estimate 15 minutes to drop your bag, 15 minutes to get through security, 15 minutes from security to the B gates.

You are more relaxed than me. There are always those days at Heathrow where something goes wrong and there are long wait times.

I am probably the wrong person to ask as I get to airports ridiculously early. In fact if I have a morning flight I will stay at an airport hotel the night before. There is the 5-star Sofitel Hotel actually adjacent to and walkable from/to T5, which I am using for a 9:30 a.m. flight from T5 next month, but it is not cheap. There are cheaper hotels at T2 and T4, including a Premier Inn at T4 that I have sometimes got for under 40 quid a night. I avoid the hotels on Bath Road.

But I am very cautious about these things so you should probably ignore me. And I usually have lounge access so can easily fritter away an hour or two.

If you travel several times a year, far cheaper in time and money to miss a flight once every decade or so than do that! But horses for courses!

[redsturgeon]

You are more relaxed than me. There are always those days at Heathrow where something goes wrong and there are long wait times.

I am probably the wrong person to ask as I get to airports ridiculously early. In fact if I have a morning flight I will stay at an airport hotel the night before. There is the 5-star Sofitel Hotel actually adjacent to and walkable from/to T5, which I am using for a 9:30 a.m. flight from T5 next month, but it is not cheap. There are cheaper hotels at T2 and T4, including a Premier Inn at T4 that I have sometimes got for under 40 quid a night. I avoid the hotels on Bath Road.

But I am very cautious about these things so you should probably ignore me. And I usually have lounge access so can easily fritter away an hour or two.

If you travel several times a year, far cheaper in time and money to miss a flight once every decade or so than do that! But horses for courses!

If you actually also live in London then the odds shift even further.

[Lootman]

If you travel several times a year, far cheaper in time and money to miss a flight once every decade or so than do that! But horses for courses!

If you actually also live in London then the odds shift even further.

I guess so. I have only ever missed a flight once, out of 400-500 lifetime flights. It was due to a hangover in Zurich. Luckily I had a totally flexible ticket and so could just hop on a later flight. If your ticket is restricted to just that flight then you would probably have to be willing to buy another ticket at short notice. And of course you would miss connections, shorten your holiday, lose hotel bookings and so on.

There was another time I almost missed a flight. But then, as the last person to board a full flight, I was seated in Business Class because Economy was already full. So lateness can work out.

It also depends where you are going. BA has, or at least used to have, 10 flights a day from LHR to JFK. You can effectively just show up and take the next flight, like you were taking a bus. That three-times-a-week flight to the Maldives is another matter.

But yes, I am paranoid about being early for flights, and I enjoy airports and flying, so take no notice of me.

[bluedonkey]

I was caught out at T5 once when I didn't take account of the extra time needed to get to the further gates (B & C I think). Ended up running like mad through the terminal and was the last one onto the plane. Lesson learnt. C gates are even further away than B gates I believe. My starting point was an exec lounge which turned out to be about the furthest you could get from my destination gate.

[BigB]

If you travel several times a year, far cheaper in time and money to miss a flight once every decade or so than do that! But horses for courses!

If you actually also live in London then the odds shift even further.

I treat getting a flight a bit like I would going to an interview or getting to a business meeting i.e. allow for 1 or 2 train cancellations or extra 30-60 mins traffic holdup if driving. Consequently, generally early, but the mental pressure of me possibly being late for something of this nature does me far more damage internally than poncing around for an extra 30-45 minutes with another unnecessary coffee/beer/wine.

[Lootman]

I was caught out at T5 once when I didn't take account of the extra time needed to get to the further gates (B & C I think). Ended up running like mad through the terminal and was the last one onto the plane. Lesson learnt. C gates are even further away than B gates I believe. My starting point was an exec lounge which turned out to be about the furthest you could get from my destination gate.

A rule of thumb at T5 is that the bigger the plane is, the further away the gate will be.

So for example BA's A380s seem to usually leave from the C gates, because they need so much more space. Most other long-haul flights will operate out of the B gates. Whilst short-haul will be out of A or B. I never notice wide-bodies at an A gate nor narrow-bodies at a C gate.

As I mentioned earlier if you have access to BA lounges (and assuming that is not the First or Concorde lounge) AND you know you are leaving from the B or C gates, then use the BA Galleries lounge at the B gates. Hard to believe but BA has a total of five lounges at T5. I know because I have been to all of them!

[bluedonkey]

Yes, I think it was a wide bodied that I was running for! Therefore gate C.

[pje16]

It's a shame we aren't more like South West airlines in the States
If you turn up early and the previous flight hasn't left and there is available capacity, they will offer you a seat on that one
It really is like getting on and off a bus, no stress at all

[Lootman]

It's a shame we aren't more like South West airlines in the States. If you turn up early and the previous flight hasn't left and there is available capacity, they will offer you a seat on that one. It really is like getting on and off a bus, no stress at all

SWA are famous/notorious for not having assigned seating. You have a ticket for a flight but no specific seat.

At the gate you get in a queue, and the earlier passengers onto the plane get their pick of the best seats. The last one to board gets a middle seat at the back next to the toilet.

This incentivises passengers to arrive and show up earlier. And is a key component of how SWA can near-miraculously turn a plane around in 20 minutes flat.

[pje16]

It's still a lot less of a performance you have to go through over here

I was on a flight of theirs some years ago
there were only 15 of us
the attendant announced how many snack and drinks there were, divided it by 15, and told us to go and help ourselves !

[redsturgeon]

I have only missed one flight in my life. A holiday trip to Kenya via BA from Gatwick back in 1989ish. I had to drive from York, had allowed plenty of time but not enough to account for being stuck on the M25 for about 4 hours while high winds were blowing the motorway lighting, that was strung on cables between the carriageways, on to the road.

I still actually turned up before the flight had left but about five minutes after the gate had closed. I had to drive back to York and return to Heathrow to take the next available flight to Kenya...had to buy a new ticket.

I hate airports, not even a great fan of airport lounges, so will still arrange to get to flights at around two hours before departure and it hasn't caused me any other missed flights.

John