UKH

Hi, having done the first family visit back to the U.K. in three years, we’ve got to fly out of Terminal 3 with Quantas. How bad is it expected to be? It took us 2 hours to clear Immigration, collect our bags and get through Customs. What’s going the other way like as I’ve read articles of massive queues at checkin and security being really and unnecessarily tight leading to further delays- we take the usual precautions to speed up security ie LAGS in bags, electronics in bags, no belts etc. thanks

Terminator 1 was always and has been the best.

Airports? Hahaha, good luck pal!

I think it should be quicker going out, because you won't have bags to collect and there will just be the normal passport checks and security to pass through.

If you are being driven there, allow plenty of time to get through the tunnel road from the north. That can be quite a bottleneck nowadays with big traffic queues. The Heathrow Express train should be fine though. I would get there at least 3 hours before departure.

I did T2 in May and T3 last week, both times to the US. May took 17 mins from arrival to gate area, July with no COVID test requirement took about 12 mins.

Both times I was nearly 3 hours early.

I flew back to France a month ago through T3 and the security queue took over an hour. I had no bags to check in but that looked busy too. I do it quite often and that was the first time I've seen it that bad. 

I looked at purchasing fast track but they weren't selling them online at the time (while I was in the queue). 

*Edit: it was a Sunday morning btw. 

Was there last (Tues 26th I think), it took my wife and daughter an hour to check in and then over an hour to get through security.  They could not check in online as they needed to show proof of PCR test but this might be different for you, they were going to Japan.  I've never seen the security queue so long, I think it took them about a hour and a half to clear it but they made their flight. 

I'd err on the side of caution and get their really early though it does depend on what time they open the check-in desks (if you need them).

We live near to Heathrow and tried to drive but the local roads were really busy so we ended up taking the Heathrow Connect from a local station and I'm glad we did. If we'd been stuck in any traffic near Heathrow they probably wouldn't have made the flight.

Good luck

I flew back home from T3 a couple of weeks ago, arrived about 3 hours early. Overall was a bit slower than it used to be but nothing horrendous....check in with KLM was a bit slow and there was certainly an enormous queue for one of the other airlines (Virgin?) which was getting a bit heated by the looks of things. Security was also busy but moved quite quickly....all in all I think it took about an hour for check in and security.

Thanks to everyone for their advice. It took us just over 1 hr to check in. Why Quantas think having 2 people dealing with economy is a good idea for a A380 is beyond me. At one point the people in the holding line to join the check in queue were increasing faster than the people being checked in.

Perhaps there is an arrangement to slow the check in down so the security clearance doesn’t get swamped as that part of the process cannot readily be expanded.

Still just under 2 hours to clear check in and security wasn’t too bad and better than expected. Beats my wife’s 3 hours in Manchester earlier this year!