London Heathrow Arrivals

Not the question you asked, but if you buy an Anytime or Off peak ticket you can just take the next available train to Edinburgh.

I flew into Heathrow on June 27 and went through the e-gates at immigration very quickly. My return originated in Manchester and I connected in Heathrow - very quick as I was a connecting passenger on BA in Terminal 5. The return flight, however, was delayed nearly three hours. I did not find Heathrow to be overly crowded, but I had my ticket on my phone and was carrying on my luggage. Manchester seemed a bit more packed - it took over a half an hour in a line to buy a coffee.

BTW my husband and I got the same cancellation message from BA early this morning regarding our September LHR to Edinburgh flight. We were able to rebook an earlier flight and connection. Lots of phone time..... We'll see whether that flight will remain in place. If not, we will take the Picadilly line to Kings Cross to take a train to Edinburgh.

Badger, do you have a source to buy an anytime or offpeak ticket for London to Edinburgh? I only see tickets for the specified time.

www.lner.co.uk

Be careful about missing a leg of your itinerary. Check with your airline. The rest of your flights, ie. your return, will be cancelled if you are considered a no-show.

I flew in to Heathrow on 7/1. The flight was scheduled to arrive at 8am, but we arrived about an hour early. There was literally no wait through passport control for me. I was through in the 30 seconds or so it took the e-reader to scan my passport. Flying home through Heathrow on 7/9 was roughly 40 minutes, but I flew first class and had the fast track line benefit, which was much appreciated. I would guess the time to pass the security without fast track was about 2 1/2 hours.

Have you decided for sure that you don't want to fly the LHR-EDI leg if you can get a seat on a different flight? Perhaps because you'd have a very long layover at LHR? I received an email from British Airways this morning saying that my Edinburgh-LHR flight had been cancelled. Within 10 minutes, I had logged onto BA's website and rescheduled to a flight from EDI to LHR departing one hour earlier.

To directly answer your question: I flew into LHR Terminal 3 (a Delta flight) on June 23. I deplaned at the front of my jet, but there were a moderate amount of other passengers arriving at the immigration check point at the same time I did. It's tremendously helpful that Americans can now use the E-gates. As a result, the line was moving pretty quickly, and I was through the immigration checkpoint in maybe 20 minutes. I had only carryon luggage.

Heathrow is not limiting arrivals, it is limiting departures. Obviously, one impacts the other, but I wanted to clarify.

Whatever, you decide to do, make sure you are communicating clearly with British Airways and that you have documentation of that communication.

BA cancelled my London-Edinburgh flight (late September) this morning. I contemplated just canceling that leg and taking the train, but with what seems to be all the railroads and/or workers threatening to strike who knows when, I rebooked a different flight. At this point it’s a toss of the dice; hope the new flight goes or take a chance getting stuck in London if LNER is on strike the day we need it.

With regard to deplaning, it goes much quicker if the plane pulls right up to the gate. If it parks on the tarmac and busses are needed to take passengers to the terminal, you can add 20-30 minutes. With our original flight we had 4 hours layover. With the new flight there’s only 3 hours that should be enough time since both flights are terminal 5.