Is one hour between connecting flights at Heathrow Terminal 5 enough?

Question

GF and I have a flight from Montreal (YUL) to Rome (FCO) via Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 5. Both flights are on British Airways and were booked on the BA sites at the same time.

Arriving at LHR at Terminal 5 at 9:35am, leaving LHR from Terminal 5 at 10:40am.

I don't think I've had such a small delay between flights.

The Heathrow web (flight connection) site says it should take about 1 hour to make the connection, all in the same terminal.

Questions (maybe I will answer myself).

1. Should We tell the flight attendants when checking in the luggage about the connection ?
2. Is it possible (usual) to ask to get out of the plane before other people if connection time is short ?
3. Is running allowed in the Terminal 5 halls ? :-)

Thanks. Max.

(question is similar to Clearing Customs at Heathrow for a connecting domestic flight to Leeds Bradford)

Update 1: Currently waiting for my connecting flight out of LHR, transit took about 15 minutes from arriving at the gate , passing security and a small walk to gate b32.

Update 2: Landed in Rome with 1/2 of our luggage, GF got hers, mine was in the next flight from LHR; so, we just chilled by the #9 carrousel. waiting for the next flight !!!

All is well now.

Answer 1

I'm only a little nervous about your connection.

It is technically doable, and you can certainly get from arrival gate to departure gate with plenty of time, if queues at security aren't too long.

But, BA094 is very often late into Heathrow due to being late leaving Montreal, which can reduce your actual connection time to 45 minutes or less.

You have a few options:

• On arrival at LHR, inform your flight attendants that you have a tight connection and ask if they can help you make the connecting flight.
• On arrival at LHR, if you fail to make the connection because the inbound flight was late, BA will rebook you on the next available flight for free.
• You can ask BA to change your connecting flight before you travel. You may be charged a change fee for this, though.

There are five LHR-FCO flights after yours, and they all show up with available seats, so there should be little difficulty getting on a later flight if necessary.

Given the frequency of LHR-FCO flights, I'd say odds are good you'll get where you're going, even if you are a couple of hours later into Rome than you expected.

Answer 2

Just to answer a few of your other questions:

Should We tell the flight attendants when checking in the luggage about the connection ?

No need as they will have all the information required once they enter your reservation number.

You can ask them to put a priority handling tag on your checked in luggage (this is usually affixed to business/first class luggage) as you are on a tight connection.

Is it possible (usual) to ask to get out of the plane before other people if connection time is short ?

No, this is not possible as loading and unloading is done on priority basis. Business/First class are offloaded first (along with their luggage) and then the main cabin is emptied in a queue.

From my experience when passengers have tried to jump the queue, they have been held back by the airline crew as it is unfair for all the other passengers.

Once you enter the terminal, if you are late for a connection you will find there are staff there waiting to assist you (these staff are authorized to prioritize you in a queue). Similarly you'll find if you need to go through customs for a connection there will be someone announcing flights that are at risk of being delayed and any passengers on these flights are put on a priority queue.

Every person and machine at an airport is designed to minimize delays; so you'll find all kinds of scurrying around being done during the normal busy corridor for that airport. At most UK airports morning this is the morning rush hour - as there is a night noise abatement curfew for the main airports in London.

Is running allowed in the Terminal 5 halls

Space permitting, yes.