Time of flights from London

[TT81]

Hi,

 

my next cruise finishes in Southampton, the paperwork says we dock at 5am. I understand the port is a fair way from the airport and I’m trying to figure out if booking the direct mid day flight from Heathrow is realistic? Or if I need to book a later indirect flight? 
 

TIA

[princeton123211]

6 minutes ago, TT81 said:

the paperwork says we dock at 5am

Which is fine, but it will really come down to when the ship is cleared by immigration for disembarkation which can be significantly after that 5am arrival time. 

 

8 minutes ago, TT81 said:

I understand the port is a fair way from the airport and I’m trying to figure out if booking the direct mid day flight from Heathrow is realistic? Or if I need to book a later indirect flight?

It's an hour and a half by car without any traffic to Heathrow from the Southampton Docks. The recommended time to arrive before an international flight at LHR is 3 hours. So in a best case scenario of you getting off the ship by lets say 7:15am (which could be optimistic) and you're in a car service/taxi by 7:30 you'd be arriving at LHR around 9am which would but your earliest flight around noon. 

 

So possible but a lot of things have to go right and there isn't much room for things to go wrong. 

 

Personally I would look if the ship has a port to airport transfer that takes into consideration your flight's departure time. If so that might be a less stressful, safer bet. Most of the flights I've done over the years from Heathrow after arriving that morning in Southampton were 3/4/5pm and there was zero issue. 

[Globaliser]

6 hours ago, TT81 said:

my next cruise finishes in Southampton, the paperwork says we dock at 5am.  I understand the port is a fair way from the airport ...

 

A critical question is what day of the week this will be.

 

To say that "the port is a fair way from the airport" is a bit of an understatement. It's in a different city altogether, about 100 km away (although I suppose that in WA that's about the distance to the next suburb 🙂).

 

Are you trying to make the non-stop from Heathrow to Perth? IIRC, that's actually scheduled for a few minutes before midday.

[John Bull]

5am is a typical ship's arrival time in Southampton.

Most ships are cleared for disembarkation from 7am or a few minutes earlier. That will be for "unassisted disembarkation" - those who are prepared to haul their own luggage from their cabin instead of leaving it out in the corridor on the last night. Regular disembarkation is normally in tranches starting at 7.30 - if you're allocated a late disembarkation time it's normally no problem asking to be switched to an earlier one, but with a noon flight I'd strongly advise disembarking unassisted. You won't have to find your luggage in the terminal, there'll be no lines for immigration that early, and unless your collar is felt customs is a walk-thru, so book a car for 7.15am 

 

As @Globaliser has mentioned, day of the week is important due to traffic levels between Southampton & London. Saturdays & sundays are normally a dream, mondays are usually worst because of weekend commuters returning to work in the big bad city.

 

The advised airport arrival 3 hours before flight time is over-kill, 2 hours is fine, 90 minutes depends on delays at check-in and security.

So even on a monday you can expect to be at Heathrow by about  9.15 - that gives you about an hour of wigggle-time.

 

For myself, if there's a suitable later same-day flight I'd book that for the peace of mind. But if it's the only flight of the day I'd take the very small risk of an exceptional delay.

 

JB 🙂

  

[TT81]

Thank you all for your answers, to answer some questions

19 hours ago, Globaliser said:

Are you trying to make the non-stop from Heathrow to Perth? IIRC, that's actually scheduled for a few minutes before midday.

I'm hoping to get the direct flight, which is at 11:55am so only a few minutes before noon. It means 16.5hours travel instead of over 20hrs and that I would be home at lunch time instead of midnight, which is better since Im back to work early the next morning

 

19 hours ago, Globaliser said:

A critical question is what day of the week this will be.

Ill be flying home on a Sunday, so hopefully traffic wont be bad.

 

14 hours ago, John Bull said:

That will be for "unassisted disembarkation"

I always self disembark, I hate waiting around for luggage, so I should be able to get off quickly

 

 

[gumshoe958]

19 minutes ago, TT81 said:

Thank you all for your answers, to answer some questions

I'm hoping to get the direct flight, which is at 11:55am so only a few minutes before noon. It means 16.5hours travel instead of over 20hrs and that I would be home at lunch time instead of midnight, which is better since Im back to work early the next morning

 

Ill be flying home on a Sunday, so hopefully traffic wont be bad.

 

I always self disembark, I hate waiting around for luggage, so I should be able to get off quickly

 

 

It’s perfectly doable, on the understanding that if anything goes wrong (delay to ship’s arrival, delay in disembarkation, unscheduled motorway closure etc) you won’t have an awful lot of contingency time.

 

So it’s really down to your appetite for risk. If you’re the type of person who’ll spend the entire cruise worrying about whether you’ll make your flight, you should rethink. It’s really not worth the stress. But if you’re a ‘what will be will be’ YOLO type of person, go for it because there’s probably a 90% plus chance everything will be fine. Just have a Plan B in mind as back-up.

[John Bull]

1 hour ago, TT81 said:

Thank you all for your answers, to answer some questions

I'm hoping to get the direct flight, which is at 11:55am so only a few minutes before noon. It means 16.5hours travel instead of over 20hrs and that I would be home at lunch time instead of midnight, which is better since Im back to work early the next morning

 

Ill be flying home on a Sunday, so hopefully traffic wont be bad.

 

I always self disembark, I hate waiting around for luggage, so I should be able to get off quickly

 

 

 

 

As per my last post, a sunday is a dream - especially at that time of day.

Even if a section of motorway is closed due to some late-night drunk killing themselves by rear-ending a truck (a popular sport on a saturday night 🙄)  alternate routes won't be clogged.

 

I'd still suggest self-disembarkation and a car booked for 7.15  to give yourself the widest window possible - if you miss the plane it's a long walk to Perth.

 

No worries

 

JB 🙂

[Globaliser]

2 hours ago, TT81 said:

I'm hoping to get the direct flight, which is at 11:55am so only a few minutes before noon. It means 16.5hours travel instead of over 20hrs and that I would be home at lunch time instead of midnight, which is better since Im back to work early the next morning

 

There are lots of advantages in getting that flight. But the reason for asking includes the fact that it takes perhaps 15 minutes longer to drive from Southampton to that terminal than it would (for example) to drive to Terminal 5. If timing were to be critical, a few minutes here and there could make the difference between safety and excessive risk. But on a Sunday morning, you should be fine.