-
We are booked into the less than joyful Thistle at T5, works well for parking and pod transfers but not a lovely hotel experience. BA have cancelled our morning flight to SFO and now we fly at 15.10 Is there a time limit on accessing the lounge ? I’ve never wanted to be there many hours before but would rather there than the Thistle. Travelling CW .
No limit as your in Club. You could even rock up at 5 am checkin!
Well other than your boredom levels demanding you go for a walk etc.
If your desperate to leave the thistle early then you could check in and then take the tube / Lizzie a couple of stops and have a walk at say Hounslow or Ealing if you didn’t want to go into central London, or go the other way and take bus / taxi to Windsor.
Thanks. It didn’t occur to me to check in and then leave. My friend will be happy to sit in the lounge and I will pace up and down the terminal periodically. Good to know that I have no limits.
No limit as your in Club.
There is no limits for anyone I believe?
The only limit is the time the lounge closes which is 22:00, so you’re free to spend all day there from 05:00 when it opens.
No limit as your in Club.
There is no limits for anyone I believe?
If you have no status and flying in WT/WTP can only drop bags off within 3 hours of your flight. For ET it’s 2.
Whilst this doesn’t affect people with lounge access it does affect a huge swathe of passengers.
I’ve never been “checked out” of a lounge or seen anyone told to leave. Even those with published time limits.
If you’re bored, go and stroll up and down the 5A-5C tunnel for half an hour or so. It’s lovely and quiet down there.
If you have no status and flying in WT/WTP can only drop bags off within 3 hours of your flight. For ET it’s 2.
Ah, never considered that!
No limit as your in Club.
There is no limits for anyone I believe?
If you have no status and flying in WT/WTP can only drop bags off within 3 hours of your flight. For ET it’s 2.
Whilst this doesn’t affect people with lounge access it does affect a huge swathe of passengers.
It’s a few years since I flew in economy, but last time I did we arrived at T5 three and a quarter hours before the long haul flight. The check in areas were quiet. We approached a check in desk, and told to go away and come back in 15 minutes. We stood nearby, with sight of the check in agent, who did nothing for the next 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, she called us back to the desk and checked us in.
BA. Bloody awful.
@Alex G this is part of an agreement between airlines and HAL. If you check in more than three hours in advance, your bag has to go into a general storage area because the specific storage area for your long haul flight doesn’t exist until three hours before. It later requires your bag to be retrieved from the general area to the specific flight store which increases the prospect of your bag not making the flight. The general store will hold things like transfer baggage and if there is any disruption it risks running out of space or making retrieval difficult, so it isn’t voluntarily used. The BA check-in agent was simply complying with the rules.
@Alex G this is part of an agreement between airlines and HAL. If you check in more than three hours in advance, your bag has to go into a general storage area because the specific storage area for your long haul flight doesn’t exist until three hours before. It later requires your bag to be retrieved from the general area to the specific flight store which increases the prospect of your bag not making the flight. The general store will hold things like transfer baggage and if there is any disruption it risks running out of space or making retrieval difficult, so it isn’t voluntarily used. The BA check-in agent was simply complying with the rules.
So if you are flying J or F, your bag is less likely to be loaded than if your flying Y? Wow!
@Alex G it could happen to any class! There isn’t a block on early bags and some are frequently early owing eg to overnight bag drop or long transfers. When all is running smoothly, the risk of early bags not being picked from the bag store to your flight store is small. However, for instance when people were arriving way more than three hours ahead because of press stories about security queues, yes systems were overwhelmed so many bags, for many airlines didn’t make it. When they do the pax/bag reconciliation, they will hold up the aircraft for extra bags on board but not missing ones, whether you are in F or Y.
Although it’s an airline rather than airport issue, the airport doesn’t want overcrowding at check-in or security as everything is planned around normal passenger flow (with contingencies) so they press airlines to tell passengers to check in 3 hours ahead but not more and to respect hand baggage rules.
Wow! We always arrive way too early, we are always paranoid about traffic jams etc. I never knew about the bag thing, something else to stress about lol
Remember that it’s a 95%+ chance that you’ll leave from a B – or more likely C – gate as it’s an A380 I think? You’ll be far more relaxed in the smaller B lounge than either of the A set. We flew out last month – the display board said North was really busy so instead went to South – where we still struggled to find seats. Flight eventually was posted as a B gate so we headed over & had the place to ourselves.
Yes I was in south last month and it was unpleasantly busy.
Do they have the same food offerings in the small lounge ? I think I recall reading that they didn’t.I haven’t tested the theory myself but I believe the self service machines will accept ET/WT/WT+ bags at any point
If you’re going early then def head for the B lounge. If your flight is an A gate you can walk (but NOT train) backNo limit as your in Club.
There is no limits for anyone I believe?
If you have no status and flying in WT/WTP can only drop bags off within 3 hours of your flight. For ET it’s 2.
Whilst this doesn’t affect people with lounge access it does affect a huge swathe of passengers.
It’s a few years since I flew in economy, but last time I did we arrived at T5 three and a quarter hours before the long haul flight. The check in areas were quiet. We approached a check in desk, and told to go away and come back in 15 minutes. We stood nearby, with sight of the check in agent, who did nothing for the next 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, she called us back to the desk and checked us in.
BA. Bloody awful.
This is solely down to capacity in the early bag store.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
