Transferring to Heathrow T5

In the good old days Virgin would check luggage through to connecting BA domestic flights at Heathrow - no more. I'll be flying in to T3 from LAX and will have to retrieve luggage and find my way to T5 but have searched and searched how to do this without success. Walking to T1 was a treck but reasonably easy - anyone know how you get to T5 from T3?

[Decker]

Welcome to V-Flyer!

Link to how to transfer

[honey lamb]

Welcome to V-Flyer

Virgin will still check your luggage through if your flights are on the same ticket/PNR. If however you have separate tickets for the BA and VS flights, then you are right - you will have to collect your bags and re-check

To a certain extent, I am surprised that 'they' - [the authorities] will allow international baggage to be checked through to a final destination in the UK.

A few years ago, I flew DEN-LHR-MAN. DEN-LHR was on American, via Chicago. LHR-MAN was on BA. The entire itinerary was on one ticket, so our bags were checked all the way through to MAN.

We never saw our bags at LHR & on arrival at MAN, our bags just came out on the Domestic Arrivals baggage belt in T3 - we walked through domestic arrivals having never cleared UK customs with the bags.

By contrast, the USA have things working correctly - you reclaim your bags at your first arrival airport in the USA, clear Customs with your bags then re-check them for your onward flight in the USA.

James

[honey lamb]

I think in terms of connecting flights such as you describe customs officials do far more 'behind the scenes' work than we know or realise. Like you, I have had my bag tagged all the way through to ORK and on other occasions I have cleared customs in LHR and re-checked my bags. Again like you, in the past I have collected my bags off the carousel in ORK and just waltzed through customs given that UK/ROI flights are part of a Common Travel Area and treated almost as domestic flights. The one time I was made go through a green rather than the blue channel seemed rather ludicrous given that there was no-one manning the channel at the time.

Over the past few months I have flown LHR-ORK from a variety of international flights and also from trips to London and I have seen various patterns emerging. Customs officials are more active when what could be deemed more 'high risk' (for want of a better phrase) flights arriving. For example, I arrived from LHR at the same time as a flight from Poland. At that stage there was a crackdown on illegally imported cigarettes coming from eastern Europe and because I had not cleared customs at LHR but had a through checked bag, I along with most of the Polish passengers had my bags x-rayed in the Green channel. In a similar vein, last week when returning from South Africa via LHR I caught the first flight of the day to ORK. Most of the passengers are connecting from Australia, the Far East, Africa and the USA as well as from early morning flights from Europe. On arrival we had to walk in single file to allow the sniffer dog to do his work and the customs line was rigorously policed. Anyone not having a green stripe down the side of their baggage tag thus indicating a flight within the EU was directed to the manned green channel for x-ray. I had already cleared customs at LHR and re-checked my bags but I still had to show identity.

As far as US customs is concerned they merely collect your form and wave you through

In EDI, they have a separate baggage reclaim belt, for bags that began their journey internationally. This belt is in a sort of customs area..

Thanks for the welcome. I've been registered for years but have only posted occasionally, being more of a lurker around my annual trip to States with Virgin. My tickets are separate so I will have to pick up my luggage and transfer myself rather than the flight connections route. Still don't see how to do this. Last year Virgin mucked up by saying they would transfer through the luggage because flight was late arriving(coming from JFK) and we went via flight connections to T1 for the BA flight to ABZ. When we got to the BA desk they said -nope so had to return to T3 where our luggage was sitting at the side of the carousel. We then had to walk to T1 and had missed our BA flihgt but they booked us on the next one. So how do I walk from T£ to T5 - anyone?

[honey lamb]

This link gives you a flow chart about connecting from T3 to T5. As you can see, you will not be able to walk from one to the other and I would not expect it to be feasible if you saw how far T5 was from the rest of the airport. the link however, as far as I can judge, pre-supposes that your bags are checked all the way through. You can ask nicely at LAX to see if they will but apart from that I'm not sure

[mitchja]

That link above doesn't show you how to transfer terminals once you have collected your baggage though, which is what most pax will find themselves having to do as airlines no longer inter-line.

I've searched the BAA web site and can't find out how to get either to T5 or get from T5 to the other terminals land-side with bags [:?]

Is T5 linked to the other terminals via the same under-ground land-side walkways? I really think BAA need to make this clearer.

Regards

[Decker]

Sorry fixed link above

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by mitchja
That link above doesn't show you how to transfer terminals once you have collected your baggage though, which is what most pax will find themselves having to do as airlines no longer inter-line.

I've searched the BAA web site and can't find out how to get either to T5 or get from T5 to the other terminals land-side with bags [:?]

Is T5 linked to the other terminals via the same under-ground land-side walkways? I really think BAA need to make this clearer.

Regards

Like you I've searched and searched and the only thing I can find so far is the Underground spur from T1,2 & 3 to T5. I've tried to find if the HEX has a free transfer to T5 the same way it does to T4 but there's nothing on its website to show this.

[Darren Wheeler]

I thought they were going to use those little capsule things for transfers.

For the moment, one line in the printed bit 'getting to and from terminals 1, 2, 3 &4.....

Buses every 6-8 minutes. No mention of baggage though

[mitchja]

I think to start with those capsule things will only be used to get pax from the main T5 building to the T5B satellite building (which I believe, is where domestic BA flights will be departing from/to) [:?]

For my next VS flight from T3 I'm going to book a BA domestic flight but give myself a bit longer to transfer just to see how it will work. I have a feeling it's going to take longer to transfer to/from T5 than it curently does to transfer to/from T1.

Underground spur from T1,2 & 3 to T5

That's a good point as you might be able to jump on the tube from the main central tube station which is located in the middle of those under-ground walk ways to get to T5 [:?]

Edit to add - Looking at this map T5 is actually the nearest terminal to T3, so a bus might be the quickest option [:?]

Regards

Regarding the Heathrow Express, [url=https://www.heathrowexpress.com/content.asp?SID={3D1EC73A-ABBF-4ABA-BE2F-F8FA8B580654}&pageid=104]this[/url] page seems to infer that there will be a free transfer between terminals every 15 minutes. The map also suggests that to get to Terminal 4 from Paddington, passengers will have to take the Express to Terminal 1,2,3 and then change for a Connect service.

Jonathan

Thanks everyone - thought it was me being dense. My journey isn't until July so hopefully by then it will be all sussed. Hadn't thought about having to buy a tube ticket between terminals!

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by jtlc2345
Regarding the Heathrow Express, [url=https://www.heathrowexpress.com/content.asp?SID={3D1EC73A-ABBF-4ABA-BE2F-F8FA8B580654}&pageid=104]this[/url] page seems to infer that there will be a free transfer between terminals every 15 minutes. The map also suggests that to get to Terminal 4 from Paddington, passengers will have to take the Express to Terminal 1,2,3 and then change for a Connect service.

Jonathan

Ah, that's what I was looking for but missed it on the HEX website where i failed to find mention of T5. I honestly can't see that passengers would have to change to Connect services for T4 when up to now they have been able to take the HEX but no doubt all will be revealed

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by mitchja

Underground spur from T1,2 & 3 to T5

Looking at this map T5 is actually the nearest terminal to T3, so a bus might be the quickest option [:?]

Regards

James, I think that map does not truly reflect the positions of the terminals relative to each other. The spur on T1 for the ROI is virtually next to T3 and the taxiway in from the runway to the gates there while T5 is way over at the very end of the runways. this can be seen clearly on Google Earth but, alas and alack I don't know how to post a link to it. [:I]

Originally posted by honey lamb
Ah, that's what I was looking for but missed it on the HEX website where i failed to find mention of T5. I honestly can't see that passengers would have to change to Connect services for T4 when up to now they have been able to take the HEX but no doubt all will be revealed

'tis true. HeX will be T1,2,3 & 5 only. HC will be T1,2,3 & 4 only. As the HC only runs half hourly it will shuttle between T4 & T1,2,3 in the period between to keep the current frequency between T1,2,3 and T4 at 15 minutes. HC runs to Paddington too so the most that T4 travellers will have to endure is about 10 extra minutes (and about £10 more in their pocket!) or take the HeX to T1,2,3 and change on to the Connect.

As a further follow up I'll give some information on the Piccadilly Line. From Central London Heathrow Trains will be a 50/50 split between T4 and T5 as a destination. All trains will go to T1,2,3 however T4 trains will wait at T4 for around 8 mins before carrying on to T1,2,3 whereas T5 trains will go direct to T1,2,3 before going straight on to T5.
In theory this should make the Piccadilly Line more relaible as both T4 and T5 trains will wait for a period of time before going back thus improving relaibility by allowing a late running service to get back on time. The previous (and current) loop meant that a late train remained late all the way back to Cockfosters.