Reply To: Any tips on how to make a tight connection from T3 to BA flight departing T5

[dannyhk]

Just to report back as promised (with many thanks once again for all the helpful advice). On arrival at T3, transit passengers (even to domestic flights) go straight to the airside bus stops (one for T5, the other for T2 and T4) without any need to clear immigration or security in T3 (which all takes place in your onward terminal). And the inter-terminal transfers can be pretty fast. Even though she was travelling in economy, she made it to T5 within 30 minutes or so of touching down in T3, with plenty of time to satisfy conformance. So I guess BA Flyer hit the nail on the head, and the 90 minute MCT only represents the minimum time airlines feel comfortable selling a connection which in reality can usually be done much more quickly than this.

BTW: Tracking my wife’s flights, I noticed again that both the Heathrow app and Flightaware treat the runway touchdown time as the arrival time. Fair enough I suppose. But since you can’t exactly disembark on the runway (and there can sometimes be delays on the way to the gate) its the arrival time at the gate which is far more useful (and what the Cathay, and I think also BA, apps show). This also means, especially if you’re on a tight connection, that historical data on Fightaware about flight arrival times has to be treated with some caution since it doesn’t reflect the time passengers were actually able to disembark.