LHR: from scheduled arrival to front curb--Go!

For those of you experienced with traveling through LHR, what is a good, general rule of thumb for the TIME needed to get off the plane in Terminal ONE, clear immigration/customs, get baggage, and then meet your driver/van at the arrivals area? Forty-five minutes? More? Less?

Thank you!

For those of you experienced with traveling through LHR, what is a good, general rule of thumb for the TIME needed to get off the plane in Terminal ONE, clear immigration/customs, get baggage, and then meet your driver/van at the arrivals area? Forty-five minutes? More? Less?

 

Thank you!

I'd say more than 45 mins to be safe. The main issue is Immigration. If there are several non EU flights arriving close to each other this can cause a backlog. However you can also on occassion breeze through so its hard to give a definitive answer. If it was me I would allow about 90 mins.

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Agree with Kevin...allow at least 90 mins. I'm assuming you are flying in overnight from the US, in which case you will probably land a bit early (due to the jetstream) which will add to your 'wiggle' time.

Simon

For those of you experienced with traveling through LHR, what is a good, general rule of thumb for the TIME needed to get off the plane in Terminal ONE, clear immigration/customs, get baggage, and then meet your driver/van at the arrivals area? Forty-five minutes? More? Less?

 

Thank you!

Do you feel you need to tell your driver when to meet you considering your scheduled arrival time? Assuming you're using a car service that regularly provides transportation from LHR into London, you can relax. Those experienced companies do this pick-up many times each day, day after day, week after week.

You shouldn't need to tell your car service anything more than your Flight number and it's nominal arrival time. The car service should be monitoring your flight to learn its actual arrival time and it well knows about the uncertainty related to clearing immigration.

If your car company is pestering you for the meet-up time, that would be a red flag to me that it's time to consider a different service provider.

You could be in an immigration line for 45 minutes to an hour so at least 1 1/2 hours from landing would probably be correct.

We've always gotten through in 40 minutes or less, including just last night. But we're returning Brits - and like in other countries we've visited, the immigration lines for overseas visitors (other than EU, who use the same lines as Brits) are much longer.

So an hour minimum, hopefully not a lot longer.

But, as Pet Nit Noy's comment, just tell your transfer operators your flight number & scheduled arrival time - they'll do the calculating, and they'll be up-to-date on both flight delays & formality timings.

No worries.

JB :)

I just recently e-mailed my car service and requested they start their countdown 40 minutes later then normal. Yes they monitor your flights, but they can only guess on how long immigration will take. So I would rather have to wait for them instead of them waiting for us. This car service starts charging extra after 45 minutes from the time your plane lands. I am using simply airports. Trip advisor gives them good reviews.

Thanks so much for the replies! Very helpful and much appreciated.

I think we will use Eddie Manning and while they seem to charge a bit more than some, they don't charge waiting fees.

Now, a follow-up question… We land about three hours earlier than the second half of the group. Same terminal. Has anyone ever noticed a place to wait around in the vicinity of baggage claim? One in our party is almost 90, albeit active. We'd like to have a place for him to sit. Thanks for any advice.

There will be some seats in baggage reclaim, but really designed just for waiting for the bags to appear. I'd suggest you go landside and wait for your party in comfort. Depending on the Terminal there may be a coffee shop or something close to Arrivals - ask on here or look at the very good maps on the Heathrow website.

http://www.heathrowairport.com/heathrow-airport-guide/airport-maps

There are also clearly signposted Meeting Points in each Terminal:

http://www.heathrowairport.com/heathrow-airport-guide/arriving-passengers/meeting-points