As I feared, my tight connection at London Heathrow Airport was anything but a walk in the park. Let’s break down the comical string of events that transpired, including what made everything moot.
60-Minute London Heathrow Connection: Chaotic As Expected
Last week, I shared about my booking home from Istanbul, which included a 60-minute connection in London (and also a tight connection in Chicago). Even transferring within Heathrow Terminal 2 is complicated and I knew that I had virtually no room for error.
My biggest fear was that the Turkish Airlines flight would be late. Why? Because Turkish Airlines does not pad its schedules, the new Istanbul Airport is a boondoggle in terms of taxi time, and the afternoon flight to London is late every day.
Silly me thinking Turkish might be on time for once. We boarded on time. We pushed back early. But the taxi time and waiting for take-off took over 30 minutes. Thus, by the time we took off, we were already set to arrive 15 minutes late.
Rather than making up time in-flight, we lost time (traffic was busy over London Heathrow) and ended up circling twice before landing. The taxi time at LHR was short enough, but by the time we reached the gate, there were 37 minutes to make my connection.
And then (of course…) there was no one there at the jetbridge so we lost another five minutes.
And then (I had to laugh out loud by this point), the door was locked into the terminal…we stood there waiting for three minutes!
Finally the door was opened and I heard my name being called!
It was a United rep! Turns out there were a few passengers on this flight connecting to my flight to Chicago. I asked the agent if I was too late and she handed me an “express connection” card and told me to run…
Of course, the convenient 2B security checking was closed, so I had to hustle all the way to 2A (about 700 meters) where I faced a short security queue. As always at London Heathrow, my bag was sent to secondary screening and I lost another few minutes because my hair wax (which I don’t even use very often) was considered a liquid…
I scampered upstairs where another United Airlines agent was waiting.
“Are you Mr. Klint?”
Yes.
He told me I had to move quickly and started hustling with me across Terminal 2A, before pointing me down the escalator where a long corridor takes you to Terminal 2B. He told me I was departing from B48 and I needed to run.
So I ran.
And I made it.
And the lovely Heathrow ground staff all laughed and said, “We figured if anyone would make it, it would be you.”
I boarded, panting, and settled down in my seat.
Whew.
And then the captain said:
“Good afternoon folks. We’re sorry to report a little problem here. The cargo door won’t seal shut. We’re going to have our maintenance team take a look.”
Ha ha ha.
We ended up departing about an hour late.
Engineers discovered a huge gash in the cargo door. We were only allowed to depart when the folks in charge in Houston decided to defer the repair…so off we went.
We flew over Windsor Castle, I had some dinner, and fell asleep.
And of course, the late arrival in Chicago shrunk my connection time to 1 hour and 13 minutes…to go from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1.
Thank goodness for Global Entry, because there were over a thousand passengers in line, but I breezed right through in under five minutes.
And then the train broke…I sat on the platform for nearly 20 minutes waiting for a train.
And then I got a text from United that my flight from Chicago to LA was delayed an hour due to a late arriving crew (the delay eventually shrunk to 30 minutes).
So it wasn’t a great operational day for United, but I will say that I slept through both flights and arrived home around 1:00 am, then slept for five more hours. By Sunday morning, I was very well-rested.
And as for that 60-minute connection in London Heathrow…well, I made it. But I will try to avoid it in the future…
Great to hear you made it. I still cannot understand why lazy gate agents cannot be on time to operate the jet bridge. They know the plane has landed but they always take their time.
Why would you assume they’re lazy vs over scheduled with other duties?
They are severely underpaid and overworked. That’s why. Simple as that.
I know the feeling.
Once I was going to London on vacation back when United ran 3 cabins on the 777. I could have easily gotten a business class seat out of IAD my home airport but first might not happen. Then I checked EWR and First was empty. I figured if the flight up to EWR was delayed at all I’d just bail on that and take an IAD flight.
Flight to EWR pushed early and the crew knew I was making a connection. Then we sat and sat at the end of the runway me looking at my watch constantly like it could make a difference. We finally get in the air and initially I can tell the crew is running full speed. Then we get slowed down and start s turns as we get further delayed. Tick tick tick tick.
We finally land and as we taxi in right by my 777 to LHR (the was pre-merger for United) and I can tell there is no one at all in line waiting to board. The door on the RJ opens and a United asks if anyone is connecting to LHR. My hand plus 3 or 4 others go up. We get off first and I sprint over to find my first class seat waiting for me. It was a great flight but it took around 20mins for me to finally relax from the stress of almost missing the flight!
I wouldn’t consider a 60 minute international to international connection at LHR as “going sideways” unless the connection was missed.
Well, I think it went sideways…
Two questions: You carry hairwax with you? As an experienced flier you should know someone is going to gripe about it in security. Second question: If you hadn’t rushed, would you have made it due to the delayed departure or was the door closed just after you jumped in? Did the other folks manage to make it?
That reminds me of a fun story about our last trip from Ukraine to Poland before the war. I used the free connection between open-jaws on an award ticket and flew ODS->WAW->KRK. It seemed ok, about 70 minute connection in Warsaw and I pushed as always though to get in line for passport control early and… it was about 5 agents handling hundreds of fliers! 2 people cried saying they had 10 minutes to make a connection and my wife gave me stink eye. 1/2 of the people didn’t fill out their transfer forms correctly. Just awful. We got through with about 30 minutes to spare and, darn it, ANOTHER security line. So we had to go through that and then with 20 minutes to spare, I forced a 6 year old girl and my wife to run for the gate. We got there just as the gate call was being announced and my wife ran to the bathroom and the gate agent is giving me the stink eye. I’m screaming at them in the bathroom and the gate agent laughs and says (like you)
The flight is delayed. Spokojna!
Anyways, technically, like you, we did make it. When it’s only me it’s not such a big deal but a wife and girl in tow makes it like trying to herd cats.
Yeah, unless he was intentionally using it as clickbait, “going sideways” does usually have a different meaning.
Does it involve you dressed as Little Bo Peep?
Stop projecting your private fantasies onto me, you weirdo.
That was an interesting series of episodes for your lhr and ord connection.
BA – as part of a bigger trip – have booked me AA first class DCA-ORD-SFO with just a 40 minute connection time. The res department said AA booking system allowed it (it was also offering a CLT connection of 35 mins)..
Any thoughts please
So Matthew, how did the hair wax hold out during all these runs?
Haven’t used it in a long time…
Hair gel…Tut tut..Rookie error!
Wasn’t gel, it’s wax. But of course Heathrow…should have known better (though no problems must last few trips out of LHR with the same thing in my bag).
Candles are viewed as liquid, in the UK at least, so hair product is a dead cert to be queried.
We had a rough experience at Heathrow years ago and were running around and then we just get to the gate to find out there was an extended delay. Thankfully we were in Polaris and they provided drinks, towels for us to clean up.
The extended delay was so long I think I watched all of a movie before we departed but I was just glad to make the flight and not sitting in coach.
Usually after an experience like that I need an extended break from flying. Too stressful for me.
Why do contributors make sweeping erroneous statements without checking facts? Turkish Airlines have two daily afternoon flights from Istanbul to Heathrow, TK1971 and TK1931. A quick check on FlightRadar shows that over a recent month less than quarter of them both even had minor delays.
We must be looking at different stats. My flight was late every day last week.
Your experience reminds me of my travels with my dad – we’d often book BA through LHR connecting from an intra-European to an international flight. The one problem: my father was a smoker and on the way back to Europe always wanted to “go outside” to smoke a cigarette after the long-haul so we got really good in navigating both immigration to the UK for landside access as well as re-clearing security. We’d hightail it out of the building, making sure to exit on the far side and then walked slowly while my father was smoking to the other end of the building and hightail it back to the gate…..oh, and he always hated long connections so he would book the shortest connection possible…(we never traveled with bags, so our not making the flight would’ve had no impact…)
Years, years ago, flew AirTran from MSY to DAL via Houston Hobby. Scheduled connection from Hobby left without us due to bad weather in Texas. All moved to next departing jet which was now overweight. We moved back to gate to unload some PAX and luggage. Now 3 1/2 hrs behind and attempting to make up time. However, the first connection was diverted to Austin and the weather broke just as we arrived at Dallas.
Great job getting to your gates. It’s like the old add with OJ Simpson running through the airport. “Run OJ run!”
I have a foolproof way of preventing hangups at LHR. That is to never connect through the airport. Ever. It is a nightmare in every respect.
What was the point of writing a teaser post on Feb 2 asking us for advice and/or bets on whether you’d make your connection, when in fact your flight had already happened on Jan 27 and you already knew the outcome?
Just curious: Why, if we been screened at the start, and land in the sterile area of the connection (LHR, or whatever) do we have to go through Security screening again to make a connection? Not just London either. Same issue with BCN, among others.
In US airports, once you’re in sterile, you can make any connection without additional screening, unless you exit terminal/sterile area.
The UK DOT doesn’t accept the level of screening ex the USA or any other country for that matter to be secure enough……hence the repeat screening at UK airports when in transit.
I told you that you would make it!