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British Airways will let you check in luggage on the Heathrow Express airport platforms

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British Airways is launching a new bag drop service on Monday, in association with Airportr.

Long-term readers will know that Airportr offers a home baggage collection and delivery service – they will come to your home, take your suitcases off you, take them to the airport and check them in on your behalf. You don’t see your luggage again until your arrive at your destination. We reviewed Airportr here.

The new service is a little confusing. I can’t decide if it genunely offers something useful. Make up your own mind.

Airportr British Airways Terminal 5 partnership

From Monday, if you take the Heathrow Express train to Terminal 5 (which immediately eliminates over 90% of passengers), you can check in your baggage on the Heathrow Express platform at the airport.

The service is only available between 5am and 10am.

It is also only available to passengers who are able to check in online. This knocks out even more potential users, since online check-in is not offered to any destination which requires travellers to show covid test documentation on arrival.

That said, British Airways passengers flying to Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, can now upload their negative Covid-19 test result and other documentation directly into ba.com for verification before travel.

I’m not sure if passengers using the VeriFLY service can check-in online although, outbound, this is only valid to the US, Canada and France anyway.

How does the Airportr bag drop service work?

You will be handing your luggage over to Airportr staff, not British Airways employees. Airportr will be responsible for checking it in and dropping it into the Heathrow baggage system. Airportr staff will “seal and secure” your luggage, which may also be an issue if you would actually prefer your luggage not to be sealed up.

You will be able to track the progress of your suitcase via an app.

The only benefit appears to be that you can avoid any queues at the bag drop desks. BA says that you can “move through the airport without the hassle of carrying luggage” but there are multiple lifts from the Heathrow Express platforms to the departure hall.

Is there a market for this?

The market for this new service is a very limited one:

  • Heathrow Express passengers
  • … travelling between 5am and 10am
  • … who are flying on one of the routes which currently allow online check-in

You also need to be happy to hand over your luggage to a third party when you could simply hop in the lift and drop it yourself at a desk.

Most usefully, remember that British Airways offers their ‘twilight’ baggage drop service the night before travel from Heathrow Terminal 5. You can drop your bags off between 4pm and 9pm on the day before you travel.

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British Airways and Avios

Comments (79)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • JK says:
    17 Jul17 July 08:51

    “ British Airways passengers flying to Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, can now upload their negative Covid-19 test result and other documentation directly into ba.com for verification before travel.”

    Where do you find this? I’ve got a family tripped for Friday to Spain. I don’t see an option to upload our NHS vaccination certificates or anything?

    • Travel Strong says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:15

      Verifly app

      • JK says:
        17 Jul17 July 17:14

        I tried that… I selected “Add a trip to Spain” but it only let’s me choose AA as airline, not BA… Really odd, and still stumped…

        • babyg_wc says:
          17 Jul17 July 19:30

          It’s on BA.com in your actual booking, verfly is different..

        • Damian says:
          18 Jul18 July 07:20

          I used it to fly to Santorini last week. A week before it only showed AA flights and not the BA flight I was on. The BA flight appeared about two days before the flight in the app. I was able to check in online but still had to show the Covid documents at the check in desk as the airline get fined if they are incorrect.

    • Baggies Surrey says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:33

      You need to download the NHS app (not the NHS COVID app).
      You will lose the will, so allow some quiet time. You can download to print or/and save a copy of your vaccination record with barcode. Did this for Goodwood last week as was a requirement for entry but nobody scanned.

    • Simon says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:48

      BA emailed us direct a couple of days before with a link when we flew to Madeira last week. It speeds up the process at the airport immensely. It took them about 20 hours to verify.

  • ChrisBCN says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:02

    So, although it may sound pointless, there are the skycaps in the US which are literally outside airports – never used them myself, but presumably there is a market

    • TGLoyalty says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:36

      Have used them before. Checked in mins before closing the flight 😉 with 0 hassle after exiting the taxi and I think it was $10 each.

  • Mike says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:09

    Is there a cost to this ? It is clear there is no benefit to this. Does cost = zero and Benefit = zero

  • Richie says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:39

    BA should be offering a service to help with bags for Avis/ Budget/Zipcar flex drop off customers.

    • Dubious says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:46

      This would be good. I remember trying to shelp a combination of 5 bags and boxes from T2 to T4 using the Heather Express – which might sound easy except that they dont let you take trolleys onto the platform…had to try shuttle one at a time from the barriers and then from platform to train before the doors closed (and again to get off).

      Can’t recall exactly why I ended up in that situation though.

      The second occasion I parked the rental car in the short stay car park, checked-in then drove the car round to the rental depot and took the rental shuttle back. All a bit of a faff really.

  • Marc says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:59

    I’m also confused about the press photo. This is T5 arrivals isn’t it?

  • David S says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:59

    Virgin used to let you check in for flights back from MCO at Disney World and Tui used to let you check in at the hotel and drop your luggage off for all those who booked via their Platinum brochure. The world has gone backwards since.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jul17 July 10:01

      There used to be a beach check-in in Barbados at one point too I think.

    • FatherOfFour says:
      17 Jul17 July 13:21

      Jet2 have a pretty nifty resort bag-drop too. In our case, our flights were fairly early anyway, but it saves them having to load multiple cases onto transfer coaches and means that customers can enjoy the last hours of their holiday luggage free.

  • Henry Young says:
    17 Jul17 July 10:02

    Does this increase of decrease the risk of your luggage being mishandled, damaged or even lost ??? Hmmm – let me think – adding an extra optional step relying on good ole super reliable British workers ??? Draw your own conclusion 😉

    • Prins Polo says:
      17 Jul17 July 10:48

      Reminds me of “curb check-in” in the US – great idea but adds another, highly manual step in the process and increases the risk of mishandling your luggage

  • @mkcol says:
    17 Jul17 July 10:05

    “you can check in your baggage on the Heathrow Express platform at the airport” further congesting the platform.
    Surprised this has been cleared from the safety perspective of people/bags congregating & possibly falling onto the platform.

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:
      17 Jul17 July 12:57

      I doubt it’s on the platform. It’ll be the platform level. There’s a wide space between the two platforms and they could easily fit a stand there

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