Short transfer times at London City Airport - risky?
Rod
offering quite a decent fare through London City Airport.
However the transfer times seem very short - basicially there's 35
minutes between scheduled arrival at LCY and departure of the onward
flight. I'm a little concerned that there is a significant risk of my
luggage not making it even if I do (unfortunately I need to take
checked-in luggage).
Anyone got any experience of short transfers like this through LCY? I
know its a small airport, but 35 minutes feels almost too good to be
true...
Thanks
Rod
Jeff Hacker
"Rod" <ne...@possil.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1brkc5h76q5jo4gj7...@4ax.com...
City Airport is pretty easy to connect at - very small, limited crowds. Are
you connecting online (same airline)?? If so, 35 minutes, while tight,
might well work.
Rod
wrote:
>> know its a small airport, but 35 minutes feels almost too good to be
>> true...
>you connecting online (same airline)?? If so, 35 minutes, while tight,
>might well work.
Yes - should have mentioned that - its BA on both legs. I guess if
their website offers it, it should work (mostly). I've not had a
great track record with BA & luggage, but admitably that was mostly
with the (pre T5) LHR, and the short connection time does give a good
travel time on paper...
Andy Davidson
> Anyone got any experience of short transfers like this through LCY? I
> know its a small airport, but 35 minutes feels almost too good to be
> true...
Hi, Rod --
One of LCY's main selling points is that they are a small airport with
ultra fast check-in and transfer.
They claim you can arrive and check in 20 minutes before a scheduled
departure (although being paranoid, I have never left it that close !)
Best wishes
Andy
--
Regards, Andy Davidson +44 (0)20 7993 1700 www.netsumo.com
NetSumo Specialist networks consultancy for ISPs, Whitelabel 24/7 NOC
Neil Williams
<"$andy$"@nosignal.org> wrote:
>They claim you can arrive and check in 20 minutes before a scheduled
>departure (although being paranoid, I have never left it that close !)
It's entirely believable. What I'd be more concerned about is the
chance of the inbound flight being delayed rather than issues getting
around the airport.
Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.
Rod
Williams) wrote:
>On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:40:52 +0000, Andy Davidson
><"$andy$"@nosignal.org> wrote:
>
>>They claim you can arrive and check in 20 minutes before a scheduled
>>departure (although being paranoid, I have never left it that close !)
>
>It's entirely believable. What I'd be more concerned about is the
>chance of the inbound flight being delayed rather than issues getting
>around the airport.
Well I've taken the plunge and booked the flights. I'm not too
bothered on the way out as there is a later flight if I get delayed on
the 1st leg from Glasgow - but as the trip is for a shortish ski trip,
my "worst case" is I get the flight and my luggage spends the rest of
the time catching up with me! But the price and the travel times are
good.
The flights are in mid-December, so I'll drop a reply afterwards on
how I (& my checked in luggage) get on...
Rod
Rod
wrote:
Well Neil was right - inbound flight from Glasgow was ~ 20 minutes
late and then it took about 10 minutes to disembark (ground crew had
gone AWOL).
So I missed the onward flight to Zurich, but at least they managed to
retrieve my checked through luggage and I then managed (after 2
attempts by the ticket desk before they got it right) to get onto the
next flight 3 hours later...
To be honest it would have been tight at 35 minutes anyway IMO - LCY
is not very "transfer friendly" - had a fair walk from the landing
aircraft and then you're dumped out into the terminal and have to go
back in through the normal security for the onward flight. Compounded
with this is the apparently poor support of transferring - e.g. the
screw ups on rebooking me on the next flight - OK - that may have been
bad luck, but on the way home, where with a more generous 45 minutes
things worked OK-ish until, as I passed the baggage carousel I
happened to spot my "checked through to Glasgow" bag merrily going
round on it. I suppose I should be happy that the combination of a
relatively efficient luggage offload and "UK borders" (as they like to
call themselves) providing a corresponding delaying bottleneck came
together to let me spot and correct the mistake - still it made me
feel that while LCY might be good for direct flights, as a transfer
hub its got a bit of work to do...
Still, the snow was good and in the end it all sort of worked out OK!
Rod