Advice on switching airports

There are frequent National Express coaches that connect the two airports.

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en/airports/heathrow/gatwick-to-heathrow

They pick up at both Gatwich Terminals (North and South) and Terminals 2/3, 4, and 5 at Heathrow. Travel time is just over an hour.

You will have to pass through immigration and collect your luggage at Gatwick, which may take about an hour. Assuming your arriving plane is reasonably on time, you should be fine with four hours.

Your first source of information is Heathrow Airport itself. https://www.heathrow.com/transport-and-directions/travel-between-airports

Its website deals with ways to make the transfer, recommending at least 65 minutes for bus travel and additional time for all the procedures required. You will have to retrieve your checked bags, if any, and go through immigration/customs at Heathrow. You also have to allow the standard, substantial, time for checking in at Gatwick, including another round of security even with your boarding pass printed. From a relative's experience I would consider four hours a minimum. I have never done this, and wouldn't, not with the multitude of flights out of Orlando to Paris using many airports for the connection, some in the US, and none of them requiring a cross-city trek. I hope your itinerary is a bargain.

Four hours is the minimum that you should allow for this transfer, so if your incoming flight is delayed, you will miss the connection.

Monday, 7am at Gatwick is a busy time at the airport. Hopefully, at that time of year, weather should not be an issue.

I see that the earlier responses are rather concerning, and I would not have bought a Gatwick/Heathrow ticket either, but if this is a single ticket, you will ultimately get where you are going. There are lots of flights from Heathrow to Paris after the one you are scheduled to take.

I would, however, explore the possibility of changing the second flight to one that leaves a bit later. If you purchased the ticket from the airline, it won't hurt to call and express your concern. They may be willing to switch the second flight to something that gives you a bit of breathing room. I imagine that if you purchased from Expedia, etc., you won't have any luck getting the ticket changed ahead of time.

If you are certain you'll be taking a bus between the two airports (it's 46 miles, and a taxi would be very, very costly), I wonder whether it would be of any help to buy the bus ticket in advance? That could save some critical minutes and prevent your missing a bus. The National Express bus tickets are departure-specific, but you can pay 5 GBP extra to have the right to take a different bus (up to 12 hours earlier or later) if you need to. That would be cheaper (17 GBP for ticket + 5 GBP extra) than buying a fully amendable/refundable ticket at 27 GPB. Those are current prices for your travel date.

The bus fare is likely to go up if you wait till close to your travel date to buy the tickets. Tickets for travel later today and tomorrow are now selling at 27 GBP for an amendable (but not refundable) ticket, plus the 1 GBP booking fee. I don't know whether there's a specific date on which the fare jumps.

You'll need to know your arrival terminal at Gatwick and your departure terminal at Heathrow before buying a bus ticket.

Do you have a single booking, MCO-ORY, with the transfer in London, or do you have MCO-LGW as one ticket and LHR-ORY as another ticket?

If the former contact the airline to find out what they will do if you miss the connection or see if they will make changes to allow more time for the transfer.

If the latter, you will need everything to work perfectly. If the LHR-ORY is a part of an ongoing ticket, and you miss this flight, your other travels on the ticket are likely to be cancelled by the airline and you will be buying additional tickets, in addition to getting from London to Paris. This scenario is way outside my comfort level

I have to agree this will be tight.

Is this all on one ticket or two separate ones? If one ticket, and you miss the second flight due to lateness of the first, you will be put on a later available flight.

Gatwick immigration can be a zoo.

There are two National Express buses an hour between Gatwick and Heathrow. It takes anywhere from 1:30 to 1:45 for the trip depending on which terminal you get on at Gatwick and which terminal you get off at Heathrow. (If Terminals 2 or 3 at Heathrow you are dropped off at the central bus station and you have to walk to your terminal. It's not far but an extra 5 or 10 minutes.For Terminals 4 or 5 you are dropped off at the terminal.)

Once at Heathrow you still have to check in even if you only have carry on and already have a boarding pass as they have to see your passport just to make sure it's valid. Then through security and then to your gate.

If you keep these flights, my suggestion is to print the boarding passes for both flights before you leave home and buy your National Coach tickets ahead of time. This will save you time on both ends.

I will just say that we have done this connection in the other direction, from Heathrow to Gatwick, for our flight to Venice on British Airways in 2003. We had a bit less than four hours between flights and it all worked out OK. But I did not enjoy the stress, and will not book a flight with that transfer again.

It would be helpful to know what airline(s) Peter is using, and whether the flights are on one ticket. My original answer about the National Express Bus assumed that they are, so that even if they missed the booked flight to Paris, they would be put on another.

Lola-- I am pretty sure its 2 bookings.

When I used the OP's flight path, I got bookings that had a 7-9 hr layover in London. Found nothing remotely close to just 4 hours.

I hope OP/Peter can make changes or has a cast iron stomach and a well padded wallet in case things fail to work perfectly.

Given what can be a tight connection, you may want to purchase premium passport control. I find that passport control at the London airports can be highly variable. Sometimes a short 15 minutes sometimes closer to an hour. The premium passport control gets you into a shorter line.

https://www.gatwickairport.com/at-the-airport/upgrade-your-airport-experience/

Thanks everyone! Your tips and links have made our anxiety level drop dramatically. Your time, information and efforts have been greatly appreciated

I would honestly spend 5 minutes checking out flight option from Gatwick to Paris. There's an 8.00 am easyJet flight but even that feels a bit tight. You'll be relying on there being no incidents on the M25 at the back end of the Monday morning rush hour around one of the most notorious stretches. Sorry, but as someone who doesn't like wasting time by getting anywhere earlier than I need to this does feel risky.

We took ryanandgill's advice and got 2 one ways to Paris out of Gatwick for an amazing price and we get into Paris earlier! Hopefully with the travel insurance we bought for our initial flights we can get a refund for Heathrow to Paris leg. Fingers crossed. We also took Rocket's advice and got the Premium Passport Control. Thanks again everyone for all your amazing advice. We couldn't have done without this gracious community! Peter

Be very careful with that plan.

If the original Heathrow to Paris flight is part of a single ticket ( US to London to Paris) on a roundtrip itinerary, the airline will cancel your return tickets if you do not take the Heathrow to Paris flight.

If you call the airline to cancel that Heathrow to Paris leg, they will re-price the whole ticket, and may charge a change fee as well.

On the other hand, if you bought a one-way ticket US to London to Paris, you are OK if you simply do not show up for the flight from Heathrow. It is unlikely you can get reimbursed through your travel insurance, however, as the change was voluntary on your part.

Listen to Sasha.

I looked up your fights. It seems, based on your times, you are flying British Airways MCO-LGW/LHR-CDG. I'm going to guess this is on one ticket meaning you didn't buy the two flight segments separately. If you don't take the LHR-CDG flight, your return flights will be cancelled.

Now before you start freaking out, you have 24 hours from the time of booking to cancel the Easyjet flight and get a refund.

After doing that, call whomever you booked the ticket through and say you are concerned about the time for transfer and would like to switch to a later flight. There is a 1:30 PM flight from LHR to CDG.

Wow sorry for throwing a spanner in the works. I'm amazed BA offer that as a single ticket.... never knew you could transit between different airports.... I would opt for that 13.30 if you can.

BA offers quite a few flights with a transfer between airports, especially now that they have more long haul flights landing at Gatwick from US airports ( Oakland, Las Vegas, MCO, etc.). Often they are cheaper than connecting at Heathrow. These flight combinations are clearly marked in the list of flights offered. And the two flights are separated by enough time to make the transfer, as long as everything goes smoothly (first flight arrives on thin, no big traffic delays, no huge lines at Iimigration, etc.)

If the op does indeed have this on one roundtrip BA ticket as Frank II found, I hope they come back to see this in time to cancel that other flight.

They said it is their first international trip so likely did not know the consequences of skipping one leg of the journey.

As a first time international traveler I'm learning A LOT!!! The cheapest deals are not always the best! I've talked to and been on BA website several times. BA only flies to Paris from Heathrow. We cancelled our flight as suggested by Frank and changed our flight with BA out of Heathrow from 11am to 1:30pm. Thanks again to everyone that pitch in to help us newbies!!!

You learn quickly! I hope you will keep on posting any more questions you might have about your trip.

From memory the minimum connection time that BA will sell a Heathrow-Gatwick connection is 3 hours. The IATA minimum may still be as little as 2.5hours, but that was set too many years ago to be reliably made.

I'm glad it worked out for you.

FYI--British Airways operates out of Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Make sure you get off at the right terminal.

BA uses Terminal 5 and Terminal 3. Check your boarding pass!

I checkd the Heathrow website and the BA Paris flights use Terminal 5 as Frank said.

We have sometimes flown BA out of T3, for Barcelona, Vienna, and Vancouver. Fortunately it is not a bad transfer like the one from Heathrow to Gatwick!

OP, so glad you've been able to make those changes. 4hours should have been enough but after a red eye flight, arriving at a large airport, clearing immigration, needing to find the coach, not being able to get off the motorway if there's a jam, navigating around T5 it would have added undue stress to your first international trip. Are you doing the same for the return leg?

Thanks again all. I feel so much better about this situation. Our Bus will take us directly to terminal 5 where pour flight takes off. I also paid extra for changeable bus ticket. Our return flight is though Miami. Since we live in Orlando if we miss our connection we'll just rent a car and drive home. =}