Missed flight

[Watershed]

There was no faffing, I assure you. Once I got on the train at Luton that was a slow one stopping for something on the track, it was betting down with rain that morning, branches ?. Once I arrived at St Pancras I then had to get to London Bridge (it's ok looking at timetables but when your stressed out and trying to get to your location and at the back of your mind your flight !) Once at London Bridge the train took an hour stopping at each station. All In all that took me almost 3 hours to get to Gatwick and still didn't make it. From 8-11 I arrived at 11.20 my gate shut at 11.10. If you are a regular train commuter then I guess you are use to the system and how the trains operate in the UK. I use them only now and again and on the whole they have been ok (we won't talk about how much it costs). I did the same journey over the summer no problem, I think that is where I ended up coming unstuck. You need to leave no end of time on a Sunday as it is way much going on. Including the nonchalant guard who told me to go to London Bridge. I had previously caught it from St Pancras to go to Gatwick over the summer. I'll try my best to see if I can at least get my one way ticket back, if not thanks for all the tips and advice from everyone.

I am struggling to see how you could have been delayed that much, but obviously you were! As you can see, having missed your flight by just ten minutes, allowing the recommended 2 hours would likely have let you make it even with the delays you experienced.

For future reference you might also want to try and use Google Maps or another journey planner if your plans don't work out - they will suggest the quickest option in the circumstances. That would quite likely have involved going via Victoria rather than London Bridge.

I don't think you will get anywhere with trying to claim a refund for the new flight you bought, and in terms of a claim for delay compensation on your way to Gatwick, such a claim is highly likely to be denied on the basis that the timetable changed after you booked.

The difficulty you have there is that, whilst that might not be a defence/exclusion that necessarily holds up in Court, are you going to pursue it that far for the sake of £20 odd in compensation? Also bear in mind the fact that they may claim you delayed yourself unnecessarily and can thus only claim for a shorter delay.

You'd check the flight is still operating before going to the airport, so why not the transport to the airport?

I would never think to check my flight is running before getting to the airport. I know that the airline will inform me if it isn't - something which the rail industry seems to greatly struggle with.

 

[jon0844]

I've been informed in the past by airlines, but it's a lot easier to check myself than hope to have an email or text that might get missed (especially email).

While I wouldn't go late to the airport if I knew it was showing as delayed, I'd at least be prepared for a delay and possibly start planning what to do at the other end etc.

I think in these cases, a quick check before setting off (or even going to bed the night before) can reduce stress by avoiding nasty surprises.

 

[Haywain]

don't think you will get anywhere with trying to claim a refund for the new flight you bought, and in terms of a claim for delay compensation on your way to Gatwick, such a claim is highly likely to be denied on the basis that the timetable changed after you booked.

Aside from the timetable change there was clearly an opportunity for the OP to have been delayed less than they actually were.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Oct 2022 ==

I would never think to check my flight is running before getting to the airport. I know that the airline will inform me if it isn't - something which the rail industry seems to greatly struggle with.

In most cases that check is undertaken through the online check-in process.

 

[mcauley358@goo]

I am struggling to see how you could have been delayed that much, but obviously you were! As you can see, having missed your flight by just ten minutes, allowing the recommended 2 hours would likely have let you make it even with the delays you experienced.

For future reference you might also want to try and use Google Maps or another journey planner if your plans don't work out - they will suggest the quickest option in the circumstances. That would quite likely have involved going via Victoria rather than London Bridge.

I don't think you will get anywhere with trying to claim a refund for the new flight you bought, and in terms of a claim for delay compensation on your way to Gatwick, such a claim is highly likely to be denied on the basis that the timetable changed after you booked.

The difficulty you have there is that, whilst that might not be a defence/exclusion that necessarily holds up in Court, are you going to pursue it that far for the sake of £20 odd in compensation? Also bear in mind the fact that they may claim you delayed yourself unnecessarily and can thus only claim for a shorter delay.


I would never think to check my flight is running before getting to the airport. I know that the airline will inform me if it isn't - something which the rail industry seems to greatly struggle with.

I'm not going to pursue the flight, i'll try for my ticket to Gatwick, see what they say. But considering that ended up being 3 hours to get to Gatwick is crazy. Thanks for the reply.

 

[pelli]

It is indeed unfortunate that Trainline did not automatically message the OP to say that their itinerary was broken, and that OP did not at any point double-check that their trains were running in the weeks beforehand or indeed on the day of travel, before or even just after they had boarded their first train.

If either of these had happened, then the OP would have been aware that Thameslink was not running between St Pancras and London Bridge and, after consulting staff or an online journey planner, at the very least would have known to stay on their EMR train non-stop to St Pancras arriving there at 09:16 instead of disembarking at Luton Airport Parkway at 08:37, looking for a non-existant 08:45 Thameslink to Brighton, probably missing the equivalent 08:47 Thameslink to St Pancras (due 09:25 after 3 stops) in the confusion and ending up on the slower 08:55 to St Pancras (due 09:42 after 8 stops) which was further delayed en route finally arriving STP at 09:50.

At that point, it was no longer possible to get to London Bridge in time for the 09:49/10:05 departures arriving Gatwick at 10:35/10:38 (the latter of which being effectively the next train, 30min later, than the OP was originally booked on, with the delay being due to connecting to and from the Northern Line instead of travelling on a single train through the Thameslink core). The OP presumably instead caught the 10:19 (delayed to 10:24) due in Gatwick at 11:05 (delayed to 11:13), which was a bit more unlucky as the added delay meant it was overtaken by the 10:35 from LBG arriving GTW at 11:08.

Overall the delay would've been roughly an hour, which could half be ascribed to the engineering closure and half ascribed to the lack of awareness of it before disembarking at Luton Airport Parkway and then missing the 08:47 replacement train.

The advice to take the Northern Line as replacement for a closed Thameslink Core is standard, but in this case coming into STP at 09:50, taking the Victoria line to Victoria (comparable journey time to London Bridge) would probably have connected onto the Gatwick Express 10:25 arriving GTW at 10:57, with a Southern backup at 10:32 arriving 11:03. It's unclear if this route is an acceptable alternative on a Kettering to Gatwick Airport Route City Thameslink (with Maltese Cross) ticket, or if a separate payment (e.g. using contactless) would be expected, but paying the extra is still cheaper than paying for a new flight...

Edit: It looks like this was the first train of the day from Kettering, so I can understand preferring to cut it a bit fine like this rather than setting off much earlier on a slower mode of transport (but I'd be obsessively checking the live running information if so!)

 

[pitdiver]

I used to work for National Express Coaches at Milton Keynes Coachway .On a number of occasions there were incidents on the M1 between junctions 15 and 14 meaning that passengers travelling on for instance the as was 230 service to Heathrow were delayed sometimes up to 2 hours. When I questioned them they often had only allowed 1 hour between arriving at Heathrow and their flight's departure, and that's travelling by coach.

 

[WesternLancer]

The other bit of advice not mentioned on here would be to simply not buy a rail ticket for a flight in October way back in August.

Unless a substantial discount was provided on the train fare for such an advance purchase (and on this route I don't think it would have been) - there is simply no point. If no discount offered I'd have bought the ticket at the station on the day of travel (or at best the day before).

If buying the day before the changed trains times would have been more likely to show up on the booking itinerary, and if the service was heavily disrupted at least it might have afforded the chance to plan alternative means of travel, and it would certainly have avoided the need to try and pursue a reclaim of the train fare.

Of course this is advice after the fact, and an overseas citizen unfamiliar with the foibles of UK trains might not be expected to know this but this is my advice.

Beyond that the OP needs to try and claim from travel insurer if they have one, as suggested early on in the thread.

 

[Watershed]

It's unclear if this route is an acceptable alternative on a Kettering to Gatwick Airport Route City Thameslink (with Maltese Cross) ticket, or if a separate payment (e.g. using contactless) would be expected, but paying the extra is still cheaper than paying for a new flight...

There must have been ticket acceptance of some sort in place on the Underground, since there were no trains via City Thameslink that day. And since the ticket has a Maltese Cross it would be accepted by the Underground barriers regardless.

Valid cross-London routes would include St Pancras-Blackfriars-Victoria and therefore using the Victoria Line, rather than taking the Northern Line, would effectively be undetectable.

 

[Haywain]

Unless a substantial discount was provided on the train fare for such an advance purchase (and on this route I don't think it would have been) - there is simply no point. If no discount offered I'd have bought the ticket at the station on the day of travel (or at best the day before).

Looks like the OP bought a Super Off Peak Return, route via City Thameslink, so it would almost certainly have been sold by Trainline before timetables were confirmed or reservations opened, albeit for trains that didn’t require reservations.

 

[Watershed]

The other bit of advice not mentioned on here would be to simply not buy a rail ticket for a flight in October way back in August.

Unless a substantial discount was provided on the train fare for such an advance purchase (and on this route I don't think it would have been) - there is simply no point. If no discount offered I'd have bought the ticket at the station on the day of travel (or at best the day before).

If buying the day before the changed trains times would have been more likely to show up on the booking itinerary, and if the service was heavily disrupted at least it might have afforded the chance to plan alternative means of travel, and it would certainly have avoided the need to try and pursue a reclaim of the train fare.

Of course this is advice after the fact, and an overseas citizen unfamiliar with the foibles of UK trains might not be expected to know this but this is my advice.

Beyond that the OP needs to try and claim from travel insurer if they have one, as suggested early on in the thread.

Whilst this certainly would avoid the problem from a practical perspective (the OP would have found out that it would be effectively impossible to make the journey by rail in time to make their flight) - it would have weakened their position in terms of claiming Delay Repay, or reimbursement of their additional expenses from their travel insurance provider (had they allowed 2 hours).

Therefore I often will book tickets for international trips a long time in advance, even if only walk-up tickets are available. Depending on the retailer you use, you can also get a fee-free refund if Advances are later released.

 

[spag23]

Then we must remember S*d's Law....
Travelling from St Albans (SAC) to Gatwick, we'd carefully checked our train was on time an hour before setting out. Then a whole sequence of events kicked in.
1. Our train at SAC had its destination changed to Kentish Town, due to a breakdown in central London.
2. At Kentish Town we had to lug our heavy luggage over the footbridge to reach the Northern Line (no lift).
3. Here we learned that the City Branch (to London Bridge to re-join Thameslink) was closed for maintenance.
4. The down escalator at Kentish Town was broken, and we only managed its huge, stationary, steps thanks to a kind fellow passenger.
5. At the bottom we had to use the Charing Cross Branch and plan yet another tube interchange.
6. Then (for the first time in over 25,000 of my tube journeys) the tube broke down, at Warren Street! It took the driver the driver 15 minutes of running back and forth to get it going.
7. When we eventually arrived at London Bridge, the blockage had cleared anyway. The train we then caught had left SAC just 45 minutes earlier!

By a stroke of luck, this was the only time I'd ever allowed three hours slack for airport check-in. So we just about caught our flight. Sometimes troubles don't just come in threes.

 

[Skiddaw]

Then we must remember S*d's Law....
Travelling from St Albans (SAC) to Gatwick, we'd carefully checked our train was on time an hour before setting out. Then a whole sequence of events kicked in.
1. Our train at SAC had its destination changed to Kentish Town, due to a breakdown in central London.
2. At Kentish Town we had to lug our heavy luggage over the footbridge to reach the Northern Line (no lift).
3. Here we learned that the City Branch (to London Bridge to re-join Thameslink) was closed for maintenance.
4. The down escalator at Kentish Town was broken, and we only managed its huge, stationary, steps thanks to a kind fellow passenger.
5. At the bottom we had to use the Charing Cross Branch and plan yet another tube interchange.
6. Then (for the first time in over 25,000 of my tube journeys) the tube broke down, at Warren Street! It took the driver the driver 15 minutes of running back and forth to get it going.
7. When we eventually arrived at London Bridge, the blockage had cleared anyway. The train we then caught had left SAC just 45 minutes earlier!

By a stroke of luck, this was the only time I'd ever allowed three hours slack for airport check-in. So we just about caught our flight. Sometimes troubles don't just come in threes.

What a combo of horrors! That's the sort of scenario that keeps me awake at night before a journey. I'm the same- if I get there three, four or five hours early I really don't care. I'd rather be twiddling my thumbs than having a major panic attack.

 

[mcauley358@goo]

It is indeed unfortunate that Trainline did not automatically message the OP to say that their itinerary was broken, and that OP did not at any point double-check that their trains were running in the weeks beforehand or indeed on the day of travel, before or even just after they had boarded their first train.

If either of these had happened, then the OP would have been aware that Thameslink was not running between St Pancras and London Bridge and, after consulting staff or an online journey planner, at the very least would have known to stay on their EMR train non-stop to St Pancras arriving there at 09:16 instead of disembarking at Luton Airport Parkway at 08:37, looking for a non-existant 08:45 Thameslink to Brighton, probably missing the equivalent 08:47 Thameslink to St Pancras (due 09:25 after 3 stops) in the confusion and ending up on the slower 08:55 to St Pancras (due 09:42 after 8 stops) which was further delayed en route finally arriving STP at 09:50.

At that point, it was no longer possible to get to London Bridge in time for the 09:49/10:05 departures arriving Gatwick at 10:35/10:38 (the latter of which being effectively the next train, 30min later, than the OP was originally booked on, with the delay being due to connecting to and from the Northern Line instead of travelling on a single train through the Thameslink core). The OP presumably instead caught the 10:19 (delayed to 10:24) due in Gatwick at 11:05 (delayed to 11:13), which was a bit more unlucky as the added delay meant it was overtaken by the 10:35 from LBG arriving GTW at 11:08.

Overall the delay would've been roughly an hour, which could half be ascribed to the engineering closure and half ascribed to the lack of awareness of it before disembarking at Luton Airport Parkway and then missing the 08:47 replacement train.

The advice to take the Northern Line as replacement for a closed Thameslink Core is standard, but in this case coming into STP at 09:50, taking the Victoria line to Victoria (comparable journey time to London Bridge) would probably have connected onto the Gatwick Express 10:25 arriving GTW at 10:57, with a Southern backup at 10:32 arriving 11:03. It's unclear if this route is an acceptable alternative on a Kettering to Gatwick Airport Route City Thameslink (with Maltese Cross) ticket, or if a separate payment (e.g. using contactless) would be expected, but paying the extra is still cheaper than paying for a new flight...

Edit: It looks like this was the first train of the day from Kettering, so I can understand preferring to cut it a bit fine like this rather than setting off much earlier on a slower mode of transport (but I'd be obsessively checking the live running information if so!)

Hey, thanks very much for this. A super train buff ! This helps alot and i appreciate your expertise on the matter. I'll put in a complaint and see what they say. This breakdown is very helpful. Thanks again. A very informative forum !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Oct 2022 ==

Then we must remember S*d's Law....
Travelling from St Albans (SAC) to Gatwick, we'd carefully checked our train was on time an hour before setting out. Then a whole sequence of events kicked in.
1. Our train at SAC had its destination changed to Kentish Town, due to a breakdown in central London.
2. At Kentish Town we had to lug our heavy luggage over the footbridge to reach the Northern Line (no lift).
3. Here we learned that the City Branch (to London Bridge to re-join Thameslink) was closed for maintenance.
4. The down escalator at Kentish Town was broken, and we only managed its huge, stationary, steps thanks to a kind fellow passenger.
5. At the bottom we had to use the Charing Cross Branch and plan yet another tube interchange.
6. Then (for the first time in over 25,000 of my tube journeys) the tube broke down, at Warren Street! It took the driver the driver 15 minutes of running back and forth to get it going.
7. When we eventually arrived at London Bridge, the blockage had cleared anyway. The train we then caught had left SAC just 45 minutes earlier!

By a stroke of luck, this was the only time I'd ever allowed three hours slack for airport check-in. So we just about caught our flight. Sometimes troubles don't just come in threes.

Blimey, I feel your pain. As a keen runner I legged it through StP and down the underground. Luckily I only had my small bag !!

 

[Bluejays]

Struggling a bit to understand this one. The rail industry does a lot wrong at times but I'd put this more down to passenger error. I'm all for leaving minimum time when travelling to airports, I do it myself, but it has to be on the basis that you accept you've messed up when it all goes wrong. Nothing wrong with speaking to insurance company though, you may get lucky. I'd advise speaking to them before train company/Trainline.

Trying to be constructive. Google maps is very good for trains and other public transport . You don't need to be a timetable wizz. At the very least it could have given a bit of prewarning that things were getting tight. Also would have probably given you a better route that could have gotten you there on time.

As a point of order. Trainline generally do contact customers with notice of changes. Might be worth ensuring phone/email are up to date with them

 

[Haywain]

Trainline generally do contact customers with notice of changes. Might be worth ensuring phone/email are up to date with them

Or checking spam folders.

 

[VauxhallandI]

I'm afraid you really cant rely on the trains at the moment. The apologists will have you there 5 hours before you need to be or staying overnight at the cost of a hotel.

However on the flip side we have our old friend the M25 So who knows what's best.

I think the bulk of the blame here lies with Trainline to be honest; lazy selling.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Nov 2022 ==

Struggling a bit to understand this one. The rail industry does a lot wrong at times but I'd put this more down to passenger error. I'm all for leaving minimum time when travelling to airports, I do it myself, but it has to be on the basis that you accept you've messed up when it all goes wrong. Nothing wrong with speaking to insurance company though, you may get lucky. I'd advise speaking to them before train company/Trainline.

Trying to be constructive. Google maps is very good for trains and other public transport . You don't need to be a timetable wizz. At the very least it could have given a bit of prewarning that things were getting tight. Also would have probably given you a better route that could have gotten you there on time.

As a point of order. Trainline generally do contact customers with notice of changes. Might be worth ensuring phone/email are up to date with them

oh they do contact people, well I will have to take that back then. User error unfortunately

 

[Starmill]

I think the bulk of the blame here lies with Trainline to be honest; lazy selling.

While I totally understand what you're trying to get at here, I think that the chronic lack of planning resources and the very, very late notice of timetables is also the root cause of for all kinds of customer service and commercial failures pan-industry.

I'm not in any position to say precisely what part of this was down to the many emergency timetables neccesitated by the pandemic, and what is down to the poor pay and lack if hiring for planning roles both in operators at Network Rail, but clearly the industry is absolutely not delivering. There needs to be a return to the idea of the twelve weeks' notice as an absolute minimum, with everything confirmed and ready to go at thirteen weeks' notice for publication the following week. Only in genuinely exceptional circumstances should revisions happen with fewer than twelve weeks notice (and for the avoidence of doubt, not wanting to pay the market rates for replacement buses doesn't count as a genuinely exceptional reason for changing the timetable). However, on current form, this simply isn't achievable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm afraid you really cant rely on the trains at the moment. The apologists will have you there 5 hours before you need to be or staying overnight at the cost of a hotel.

That the railway is awful at the moment (with which I'd agree, parts of it are borderline useless) is not the airline's problem. You need to get there on time for your flight. If the railway is unreliable, either don't use it or travel very early or the day before.

 

[Starmill]

That the railway is awful at the moment (with which I'd agree, parts of it are borderline useless) is not the airline's problem. You need to get there on time for your flight. If the railway is unreliable, either don't use it or travel very early or the day before.

To be fair, driving to a time-critical appointment such as a flight does appear to be exactly what the post you're quoting is endorsing! Some people take it a step further and will drive only on single-carriageway roads, so that if the road is closed, you can do a u turn and find another route rather than waiting for the police to clear a lane or set up a contraflow for evacuation.

 

[miklcct]

Some people take it a step further and will drive only on single-carriageway roads

What if the only vehicular access to the airport is a motorway?

 

[richw]

If the railway is unreliable, either don't use it or travel very early or the day before.

If my flight is before lunchtime I always book an overnight hotel near to the airport. Removes another layer of stress that way

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, driving to a time-critical appointment such as a flight does appear to be exactly what the post you're quoting is endorsing! Some people take it a step further and will drive only on single-carriageway roads, so that if the road is closed, you can do a u turn and find another route rather than waiting for the police to clear a lane or set up a contraflow for evacuation.

Certainly when I was doing Luton Airport at the crack of dawn every Monday morning for a couple of years, I didn't want to leave lots of slack so I did indeed drive via the A5 instead of the M1 so as to be able to do exactly that if there was a problem. I'd usually do the M1 on the way home as that was slightly quicker and no longer time-critical.

 

[Starmill]

What if the only vehicular access to the airport is a motorway?

Then one drives on the motorway and leaves the time required by their travel insurer to be a reasonable contingency against a delay on the motorway. If they're so delayed a miss their flight they claim from their insurer.

 

[miklcct]

If my flight is before lunchtime I always book an overnight hotel near to the airport. Removes another layer of stress that way

It is very expensive to book a hotel near the airport under most circumstances. I'm mostly flying only because the cost of my trip is cheap enough to do so (I'm targeting approx. £100 for transport and accommodation for a weekend euro trip) and having to book another night of hotel will add to the cost significantly.

For example, my 4-night trip to Vilnius in May cost me £41 in flights, £24 in landside transport in the UK, £7 in landside transport in Lithuania, and £30 in 4 nights of hostel accommodation. I lived in Bournemouth at that time and the £24 consisted of split Rail Sale Advance train tickets on convoluted routes with sub-minimum transfer times across London because it was the only possibility to buy the lowest tiers of Advance tickets (including a £1.75 ticket from Southampton to Victoria and a £1.15 ticket from St Pancras to Luton Airport Parkway).

I'd rather book the cheapest tickets to have maximum savings and spend my hard-earned holiday money on food, activities and museum visits, knowing that in the rare occasion of anything going wrong, I will buy another ticket at walk-up fare on the next departure to continue my journey.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What if the only vehicular access to the airport is a motorway?

There aren't any UK airports that can only be accessed via a motorway.

 

[miklcct]

There aren't any UK airports that can only be accessed via a motorway.

Oh thanks.

The new airport in Hong Kong had only a single motorway access since its commencement of operation until late 2020, when the second access opened. There had been a few instances the access had been cut off due to weather / bridge strike, in such circumstances the government's contingency plan is to procure emergency ferries.

 

[Starmill]

There aren't any UK airports that can only be accessed via a motorway.

Indeed. There's next to nowhere that you can't get to in a car, otherwise than by motorway.

 

[Wolfie]

In that case, I hope their travel insurance covers public transport to the airport and the insurer pursues the train company because this daily 10pm timetable change Nanse nonsense is massively unfair to customers and won't stand up once decent lawyers hit it.

Agreed. It needs a corporate entity with deep pockets and good lawyers to rip the scumbag ripoff TOCs a new one.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Nov 2022 ==

I suspect the latter, or very poor planning. The engineering works were advertised 8 weeks before travel.

Personally I always allow minimum 3.5 hours minimum from train to flight. Plenty to do at the airport when the trains run perfectly and removes any stress.

Agreed that building a big margin into travel to airports is common sense as is checked that arrangements haven't changed since booking.

 

[Watershed]

I'm afraid you really cant rely on the trains at the moment. The apologists will have you there 5 hours before you need to be or staying overnight at the cost of a hotel.

I don't think it's so much this, as the fact that you'll almost certainly be unable to benefit from any travel insurance protection if you don't allow the recommended time (usually 2 hours) between your planned arrival at the airport and your flight's scheduled departure time.

By failing to do so, the OP has essentially excluded any possibility of being able to recover any of the costs which they incurred as a result of the delay they experienced.

I think the bulk of the blame here lies with Trainline to be honest; lazy selling.

It's not the retailer's fault that the data they have been given is, for want of a better word, false - which is clearly the case here (the amended engineering work timetables only having been uploaded after the ticket was sold).

What might more reasonably be attributed as the retailer's fault is if they don't notify the customer of changes to the timetable after booking; Trainline do normally do so, so it would be relevant to ask why the OP didn't read or receive any such alert.

 

[richw]

It is very expensive to book a hotel near the airport under most circumstances.

I don’t agree.

Heathrow bath road premier inn has never set me back more than £50.

I paid £42 at Manchester airport premier inn on Saturday night.

Previous trip I paid £47 at stansted premier inn. It removes a lot of stress and helps arrive relaxed.