Does your flight delay pickup still go ahead if you land late?

Journey times are typical, not guaranteed. We plan departure times around live traffic on the day.

What happens if my Heathrow or Gatwick flight lands late?

The pickup is booked against your flight number rather than the printed arrival time, so your chauffeur sees the real landing time and adjusts the meeting point accordingly. The fixed price you agreed before travelling — £80 or £115 at Heathrow, £150 at Gatwick — stays the same whether the flight is on time or hours late.

Heathrow runs on two fixed prices depending on distance: £80 if your pickup or drop-off address is within roughly 12 miles and not in central London, £115 if it's further out or heading into town. Gatwick is a single £150 fare regardless of the London postcode at the other end. Neither number changes because of a delay — only a different destination changes the price, and that's agreed with you directly rather than added automatically. Because the booking runs off the flight number given when you book, there's nothing to rearrange on your side if the aircraft pushes back late from the gate, sits on the runway before departure, or simply takes longer in the air. Stansted, Luton and London City work the same way: all five airports are tracked by flight number, and it's the same chauffeur checking the live arrival data, not a dispatcher reading from a printed list. If a flight is running late enough that the pickup time shifts by an hour or two, nothing about the booking itself needs to be touched — the confirmation you received in writing still stands, just against a later clock time.

How long will I wait outside Heathrow Terminal 5 before extra costs kick in?

Sixty minutes from touchdown is included free on every airport pickup, which is usually enough to clear passport control, collect luggage and walk out through arrivals. At Terminal 5 that waiting happens outside the arrivals exit, not inside the terminal, since a chauffeur isn't able to come through security to meet you at the gate.

The free hour is counted from the moment your flight actually lands, not from the time you were scheduled to land, so a delay doesn't eat into it — the clock only starts once the wheels are down. For most arrivals that's enough even on a slow day: a full stop at immigration, a wait at the carousel and the walk out through customs. At Heathrow Terminal 5 specifically, the practical meeting point is the Pret a Manger just outside the arrivals exit — it's become the landmark drivers use because there's no way to go further in and wait at a desk or gate. If you're delayed beyond 60 minutes, for example because of an unusually long immigration queue rather than the flight itself, that extra time is worked out directly with your chauffeur rather than through a call centre, since you're dealing with the same person throughout. The same free hour applies at Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City, each with its own fixed total price, so a longer-than-usual wait at any of the five doesn't change what you were quoted for the fare itself — only genuinely extended waiting beyond the hour is treated separately.

What if my flight is diverted or cancelled instead of just delayed?

A diversion or cancellation is handled the same way as any other change: your chauffeur gets in touch directly by WhatsApp as soon as the new situation is known, to agree a revised pickup time or location. Because there's one chauffeur and one Mercedes-Benz EQE rather than a pool of drivers, this is coordinated personally rather than passed through a booking system.

If a flight is diverted to a different airport, that's effectively a new journey rather than an extension of the original waiting time, since it means driving to a different location in London's airport ring rather than waiting longer at the same one. In that situation your chauffeur will confirm a new fixed price with you before setting off, the same way the original fare was agreed in writing. A cancellation is simpler in one sense — there's no pickup to make — but because flights are tracked by flight number, a cancelled flight shows up in the tracking rather than leaving your chauffeur waiting at the terminal without knowing why you haven't come out. The one thing worth knowing, precisely because this is a one-driver, one-car operation rather than a large firm with spare cars and spare drivers on standby, is that an extreme delay, diversion or very late cancellation can occasionally run close to another passenger's booking later the same day. When that happens, you'll hear about it directly from the person driving you, by WhatsApp, as soon as the new timing is clear — not from a call centre reading off a screen.

Does a delayed landing after 11pm cost more?

Yes — the 20% night surcharge applies to any pickup between 23:00 and 06:00, and it's triggered by the clock, not the cause. A flight due at 22:30 that actually touches down at 23:40 moves into the night rate the same way a flight scheduled for 01:00 would.

The surcharge reflects the driving conditions at that hour rather than a penalty for being late, so it applies equally whether the late hour was always expected or only happened because of a delay. It sits on top of the fixed fare for the airport in question — for example the £115 Heathrow fare for an address further out, or the £150 Gatwick fare — rather than replacing it, so the increase is the same proportion whatever the destination. This is worth factoring in if your flight has a scheduled landing close to 23:00 or 06:00: a delay of even thirty or forty minutes either side of those times can move the surcharge on or off the fare. Because the fixed price and the surcharge are both agreed in writing before you travel, there's no meter running and no surprise on arrival — if the delay is severe enough to shift the booking into the night window, that's confirmed with you by WhatsApp along with the revised pickup time, so the final figure is never a surprise at the kerb.

What if traffic delays me on the way out to Heathrow or Gatwick?

This is a different problem from a delayed arrival, and it sits on the road rather than in the air: weekday mornings run heavy into London, and weekday evenings run heavy back out towards Heathrow as the working day ends. Saturday and Sunday into central London are comparatively clear.

If you're catching a flight rather than meeting one, the free waiting time doesn't apply in the same way, because there's no flight to track yet — the variable is the road, not the airport. A weekday pickup from central London heading to Heathrow in the early evening, for instance, is a case worth quoting as a range rather than a single number, since traffic coming out of town at that hour is genuinely unpredictable. The reverse is true in the morning: traffic into London from Heathrow is heavier than traffic going the other way, so an early outbound departure from a central address is usually the more comfortable one to plan around. None of this changes the fixed price for the airport itself — a point-to-point drop-off to Heathrow or Gatwick is still quoted as one fixed fare — but it does mean the honest advice on a weekday is to build in extra time rather than cut it fine, since the uncertainty before departure is on the road, not in the booking.

More guides: Can I Bring a Child Seat in a Chauffeur Car? · Chauffeur for Elderly Parents in London | Crest Chauffeurs · Chauffeur vs Black Cab from Heathrow: Costs Compared

What do you only find out by doing this journey?

Where you'll actually be met at Terminal 5. A chauffeur can't come inside the terminal, so if your flight's delayed the wait happens outside the arrivals exit, by the Pret a Manger landmark drivers use to find each other — not at a gate or desk.

When is this the wrong choice?

A flight diverted to a genuinely different airport. One chauffeur and one car means physically relocating across London; a transfer booked for Heathrow can't become a Gatwick pickup without a new fixed price agreed first.

• Back-to-back bookings with no slack in the diary. With a single chauffeur rather than a pool, a very long delay on one job can run close to the start of the next — rare, but worth flagging at booking if your flight history is unpredictable.
• Open-ended standby waiting with no confirmed flight. Tracking runs off a real flight number given at booking; it isn't built for an undefined wait with no departure confirmed yet.

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