London Travel Forum

I know I'm asking the impossible...

But wondering what your thoughts are about a Cathay flight to Heathrow from Melbourne, scheduled to land at 4pm in T3, and the likelihood of me getting to T5 to get a BA flight to Geneva that leaves at 7.45?

Am I taking too much of a risk?

if the plane lands on time then you can make it, but be ware that overseas flights are more prone to delays than shorter flights.
i would personally not do it, but rather spend a day in london and take the flight the next day.

sounds completely doable to me. My experience of long haul flights is the opposite - they tend to land early rather than late, and leave the European flights stacked up over Essex!

Agree.

No-one can tell you exactly how long it will take for you to get through passport control, reclaim your bags, get yourself to T5, check-in, get through security....it depends entirely on the day and time you arrive.

It should be feasible though, especially if your flight lands on time.

Have a look at http://www.heathrowairport.com/ and click on 'flight connections' (purple, on right of page). There is a personal flight connection planner tool.

Taking the Heathrow Express train to T5 will be quicker than taking the bus.

just a little thing more here.
one of the reasosn why i wrote that his overseas flight was a little more prone to delay was also cause he flies melbourne-london with cathay which means he will have to touch down in hong kong and there is also a risk of missing a connecting flight there.
but like i said, if the plane arrives to london on time then it's certainly doable.

thanks for your replies guys.

thing is, i really need to be in Geneva that night, or early as possible the next morning (arrive 9.20, not really early enough!!!) ..so i'm a bit between a rock and a hard place.

i would love to be able to spend the day in london, but unfortunately i just cant do it!

Are your bags checked through to Geneva?

lets see you could be in say Westminster bout 10 ish so a couple of hours you would probably have to leave central London 1sh to get to gatwick to check in on time,soyou would get 3 hrs ,at least you could say you've been.

The OP only has 3h 45mins and is flying in and out of Heathrow.

I assumed bags were not being checked through as the OPis flying with two separate airline...if they are, then that will make transferring much quicker and easier.

Sorry mate i have your timings wrong,at least i tried.

yes leics, you're correct in your assumptions.

thanks anyway johnwilky!

I thought that BA and Cathay (good choice by the way) are part of the ONE WORLD ALLIANCE. They code share flights. What's the point of a One World Alliance when these connections are not 'one world'.
I see on Cathay's web that they advertise a flight to Zurich that lands at Heathrow at 06.20 and the BA takes off at 09.40. That's 3 hours 20 minutes .....

Did you see the flight punctuality web site - bizarre. It looks that Cathay was punctual up to 2008 and was overtaken by Virgin into Heathrow ! Cathay had 1% flights more than 3 hours late - ouch !
http://www.flightontime.info/londonhongkong/index.html

i checked "oneworld" and BA and Cathay are definitely part of it. does this mean i can request my baggage to be checked straight through? ...that would make my decision lots easier

I don't know if that automatically means your bags can be checked through, but there is no harm in asking......so I would.

Remember that there is a very good chance you'll be "zonked out" after being on the go for over 24 hours straight - Melb - HK - LHR plus time to get to Melb airport + check in time (minimum 1 hour). Sounds like just maybe you should leave a day earlier to try and clear the head.

Maybe I'm missing something but why did you not book a flight from Melbourne to Geneva? Why fly via Heathrow?

thats a fair question.

truth is, my committments have changed. initially i was spending time in london and now i've got an opportunity to do some work experience in geneva before my course starts there on the 4th of july.

tricky situation!!!!!!!!!