irishtexan From United States of America, joined Jul 2011, 22 posts, RR: 0 Posted (9 months 2 weeks 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 1921 times:
Apologies if this is covered elsewhere, but from a cursory search I can't seem to find an answer to my query.
Given the number of flights from the U.S. to LHR arriving at a wide variety of times through the day, I'm curious to hear any opinions on what times are best or worst. My concern centers around the media reports on occasional multiple hour delays at customs/immigration and I would hope to schedule my arrival away from the worst of the bottlenecks, which I imagine probably occur around the early morning arrivals.
Tks in advance for any input or comment.
gabrielchew From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 2512 posts, RR: 13 Reply 1, posted (9 months 2 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 1852 times:
It depends on which class and terminal you arrive at. Most terminals are fairly evenly spread thoughout the day for arrivals. T3 probably has the highest % of non-EU pax (ergo the longest immigration queues), followed by T4, T5 and T1. First thing in the morning (5-8am) is peak arrival time for longhual arrivals from USA/India/Far East. There is another clump of mainly Asian arrivals around 3-6pm. You'd have to look at the full daily timetable for each terminal individually to work out the quietest time for arrivals. Late evening there are also a handul of arrivals from IAD/BOS/NYC/ORD...this is normally a quiet time (as well as helping with jetlag).
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21465 posts, RR: 24 Reply 2, posted (9 months 2 weeks 1 day 22 hours ago) and read 1794 times:
Quoting gabrielchew (Reply 1): Late evening there are also a handul of arrivals from IAD/BOS/NYC/ORD...this is normally a quiet time (as well as helping with jetlag).
teo747 From United States of America, joined Nov 2006, 132 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (9 months 2 weeks 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 1776 times:
I arrived into LHR Terminal 1 on a UA flight from ORD this summer that was scheduled to arrive at 5:55 AM and actually arrived around 5:30. The immigration/arrivals area of the terminal was absolutely deserted and I was at the Central Bus Station right around 6:00 even after stopping to buy a newspaper and coffee. Of course, it could be completely different at other terminals, but I was very pleasantly surprised after also reading about the horror stories of hours-long waits at immigration.
irishtexan From United States of America, joined Jul 2011, 22 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (9 months 2 weeks 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1766 times:
Tks for the helpful info.
Looks like my best option is AA80 nonstop dep. DFW 9.25pm arr LHR 12.25pm.
Had been contemplating connecting AA flights via ORD dep DFW 05.45am and arr LHR 10.45pm as an option that would hopefully minimise arrival delays at LHR as an offset against the additional travel/transit time.
LAX888 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2010, 256 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (9 months 2 weeks 1 day 13 hours ago) and read 1742 times:
I guess your best bet would be that AA flight you mentioned and also flights arriving at T1 as from my experience the queue was not that long in comparison to T5 where you might be unlucky to have 3-4 longhaul flights arriving together.
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