Arriving REALLY early for your flight

I'm flying out to JNB later this year in PE. I'm going to be staying at a hotel at Paddington, but don't feel like carrying my luggage around all day for meetings.

Although I could just leave it at the hotel, I'm hoping I could rather get up a little earlier and pop off to Terminal 3 to check-in REALLY early for my flight (this will give me a greater chance of getting the PE bulk head seat, or possibly even upgrading my ticket to UC)

Would VS have an issue with me trying to check-in around 7am for a 17:50 flight?

[honey lamb]

No problem at all. I believe many check in for the HKG flight first thing and then go off and do a day's work before returning to the airport. I think, though, that I have read somewhere that they like you to tell them that you are leaving the airport in case they need to page you

As HL says, you can check-in your baggage any time after check-in opens at 06:00.

The check-in agent will check whether you are leaving the terminal or not - All passengers who leave LHR have their bags held back from normal loading procedures for security reasons.

Once you have your boarding pass scanned at the gate your bag is loaded at that point, always go to the podium in this instance and double check that your bags definitely get loaded by the ground crew at the aircraft. You can also ask at the CH if you have access, the concierge can get your bags loaded for you also.

Your bags are tagged NOT to be loaded unless someone physically removes the tag for you once VS are happy that you have made it back to the airport to take your flight.

Other than this procedure checking in that early is fine and you can disappear and enjoy your day...

Originally posted by tallprawn
Once you have your boarding pass scanned at the gate your bag is loaded at that point, always go to the podium in this instance and double check that your bags definitely get loaded by the ground crew at the aircraft. You can also ask at the CH if you have access, the concierge can get your bags loaded for you also.

Which begs the question, how long can you spend in the CH at LHR? In general if the timing's right and I am flying alone I try to get there at least three hours before, but four is better. Even then, the time flies all too quickly what with half an hour in the hot tub, a refreshing shower, hair cut etc etc. Frequently if I am travelling with others they can't see the point of turning up so early, so I try to arrange to meet them in there.

So I suppose it is technically feasible to turn up at the CH after the 06:00 check-in for your 22:30 to HKG/SYD. With a good fifteen hours plus to play with in there, you could do the CH twice in a day by fitting in a nap in between bouts of Champagne.

Cheers, Howard

Many thanks for the help. I also emailed VS customer services with the same query, and their reply was:
"Our check in desk would be open approximately 3 hours before your flight departure time. Hence, you will be unable to check in early at around 7am for your 17:50 flight."

I do generally trust the forum more, but should I be worried that I will waste my time going to Heathrow that early only to be turned away?

Tallprawn - you mentioned I should go to the Podium to check that my bags are getting loaded. What is the podium?

Originally posted by sstolp

Tallprawn - you mentioned I should go to the Podium to check that my bags are getting loaded. What is the podium?

The podium must be in a very special 'gentleman only' area of the Clubhouse that I am yet to discover.... [}:)] [}:)] [}:)]

Originally posted by Howard Long

So I suppose it is technically feasible to turn up at the CH after the 06:00 check-in for your 22:30 to HKG/SYD. With a good fifteen hours plus to play with in there, you could do the CH twice in a day by fitting in a nap in between bouts of Champagne.

Cheers, Howard

Hmm - shouldn't the CH provide little sleep-in places just for such a purpose, like the EK First lounge in Dubai?

Originally posted by sstolp

Tallprawn - you mentioned I should go to the Podium to check that my bags are getting loaded. What is the podium?

The desk at the entry to the gate area where the staff check your boarding pass is what I call the podium. Sorry for the daft terminology...

If you tell them your bags were tagged with green don't load labels they will get the removed and your baggage onboard.

Originally posted by sstolp
Many thanks for the help. I also emailed VS customer services with the same query, and their reply was:
"Our check in desk would be open approximately 3 hours before your flight departure time. Hence, you will be unable to check in early at around 7am for your 17:50 flight."

I do generally trust the forum more, but should I be worried that I will waste my time going to Heathrow that early only to be turned away?

Tallprawn - you mentioned I should go to the Podium to check that my bags are getting loaded. What is the podium?

Well, unless something's changed, the reply from VAA CS is incorrect - I checked in at 06:45am for a 21:30 flight to SYD, because I wanted to be sure to snag an exit row seat (of course I had to give it up on the flight for a sick PAX but that's another story - see my trip report). There was aboslutely no issue at check-in doing this. So I'd check again if I were you.

Well, when I went to SFo, a combination of excitement, and the fact that it was my first holiday without parents meant that I wanted to check in as soon as possible. I therefore checked in really early, infact, I was the first passenger to check in with VS that day. This was at 6:00 am for an 11:30 am flight. No problems there.
I think they do tell you to come later to control the crowds, as obviously LHR is a very busy airport and they have a lot of flights heading out close to each other in the morning, and want to reduce queues.

Kev.

I am thinking of doing a very early checking for my future LHR-SYD flight in order to bag exit row seats. My only question about doing this is can I check both myself and my girlfriend in with only me being physically present? I have the whole day off but my girlfriend is working a half day!

TIA

Matthew

[preiffer]

Matthew,

Normally you could, as you could simply do it online. However, for exit seats, the check-in agent needs to SEE you both, to determine that you're both physically fit and able. As such, I don't believe you'll be able to do so without both parties physically there.

Originally posted by mstringer
I am thinking of doing a very early checking for my future LHR-SYD flight in order to bag exit row seats. My only question about doing this is can I check both myself and my girlfriend in with only me being physically present? I have the whole day off but my girlfriend is working a half day!

TIA

Matthew

Hi Matthew,

You can only check-in yourself, as the check-in clerk will need to see the passport and the person to make sure they match! Not too sure if you check yourself in and see if you can move your GF to the seat next to you, so when she checks in that she has her seat secured???

DMB

Hi Dominic,

This has got me wondering and was exactly why I wanted to pose the question. Thing is if we used the OLCI function we can allocate our own seats (Not exit row admittedly), print our own boarding passes and never touch the VS check in desk. Security verification is then at passport control to check you are whom you say you are etc.

Now I know that we are going to put checked luggage into the hold so its slightly different from above, but even still the security aspect is taken care of as the luggage would get bumped off the aircraft if the person never showed for the flight and assuming they do show then passport control etc would guarentee their identity.

Perhaps a call to FC might help shed some light.

I'm just desperate to get those exit row seats after reading some unpleasant TR of VS200 in Y!

Matthew

[preiffer]

Matthew, the reason you can't (as I said above) is absolutely nothing to do with security. It's because the check-in agent must SEE that every passenger occupying an exit row seat is physically fit and able.

Ah yes... good point Paul. Looks like this plan goes out the window too!

Matthew

After that response from customer services I was a bit apprehensive about my early check in at Heathrow, but I checked in at 8am for a 3pm flight no problem. The check in agent did confirm that I wasn't going to be leaving the airport though.