Two journeys hide under one heading here, and they behave nothing alike. A departure is a problem of timing, solved by working backwards and adding margin. An arrival is a problem of waiting, solved by somebody standing in a terminal for as long as it takes. Knowing which of the two you are booking is most of what you need, and both are described below in order.
The detail matters because this is the journey where going wrong costs the most. A late car on a Tuesday afternoon is an irritation. A late car at half past four in the morning is a missed flight. What follows is how we plan against that, and what we can and cannot honestly promise about a flight we do not control.
What we need before a transfer
For a departure we want your check-in time or the flight time, the terminal if you know it, the collection address and an honest count of the luggage. For an arrival we want the flight number, the terminal and the same luggage count. The flight number is not a formality; it lets us plan against the published schedule and the usual clearance times for that terminal.
Everything else is refinement, and most of it concerns the ends of the journey rather than the road between them. Which door of a residential block. Whether a gate code is needed at five in the morning. Whether a passenger needs a hand with a case or a low seat. Small things, and collectively they decide whether a pre-dawn collection feels calm or chaotic.
- The flight number, and the terminal if it is already known
- Check-in time for departures, landing time for arrivals
- A real luggage count: large cases, cabin bags, pushchairs, golf clubs
- Passenger numbers including children, and their ages for seats
- Access notes: gate codes, barriers, which entrance at what hour
- Whether you would prefer to be met inside or collected kerbside
Departures, worked backwards
The collection time is calculated from your check-in rather than from the flight, and then a margin is added for the road and the hour. The M25, the M4 and the approaches to any terminal have well-known times of day when they fail, and the plan assumes the failure rather than hoping it does not happen. In practice that means leaving appreciably earlier than a mapping app would suggest.
Your chauffeur arrives before the agreed time rather than on it, loads the cases himself and takes you to the correct terminal door rather than the general drop-off. For a very early departure we confirm the collection time with you the evening before, so there is nothing to answer at four in the morning and nobody lies awake wondering whether the car will appear.
Arrivals, and where you are met
Unless you ask otherwise, your chauffeur meets you inside the arrivals hall with a name board, takes the trolley and walks you to the car. The meeting point is confirmed in writing beforehand, which removes the single most common source of confusion at a large terminal: two people standing at two different exits, each convinced the other one is late.
We plan the pickup around the published schedule and typical clearance times rather than any live tracking service, so if you are held at immigration or your bags are slow, a message from you is the quickest way to keep everybody informed. A reasonable waiting allowance is included and confirmed with your quotation, and the chauffeur waits rather than circling the terminal.
If you would rather not be met inside at all, say so. Some travellers prefer a kerbside collection, particularly when arriving alone with hand luggage, and a few would rather no name board existed anywhere. Both are ordinary requests and both are recorded against the booking rather than left to be guessed at.
Sizing the car to the bags
Luggage is the detail most often understated, and it is understated in the same direction every single time. Two large cases and two cabin bags travel comfortably in an executive saloon. A family of four with holiday luggage, or three colleagues each with a case and a suit carrier, wants a larger vehicle, and finding that out at the kerb helps nobody at all.
Mention anything unusual as well as the count: skis, a cello, a pushchair, golf clubs, a box that has to travel flat. Child seats need agreeing in advance with the ages of the children, because the correct seat has to be with the correct car on the day rather than found somewhere on the morning.
When the flight moves
Flights are delayed, retimed, diverted and occasionally moved to a different terminal, and none of that is within anybody's control. What is within ours is the response. Tell us as soon as you know and the collection is moved. We are an independent chauffeur service with no relationship with any airport or terminal operator, and we claim no privileged information about your flight.
For a significant delay we would rather rebuild the booking than leave a chauffeur sitting in a car park for five hours. Where a diversion lands you at another airport entirely, tell us and we will quote the revised journey before anything is committed. It is not a common outcome, but it is a great deal easier to solve when the first message arrives early.
Connecting itineraries and terminal changes
Airport-to-airport transfers are ordinary work and are planned with two flight numbers rather than one. The margin between baggage reclaim, the drive and check-in at the second airport is calculated deliberately, and we will tell you if a connection is too tight to be sensible rather than take the booking and hope for the best on the day.
Where a group arrives on different flights, the usual answer is either separate collections or one vehicle held for the later arrival, and which is better depends on how far apart the landings sit. Send both flight numbers and we will say which we would arrange, and why we would arrange it that way.
