Hi Pat, i'm sure with holidayextras i've done this, you can put the 1 night hotel stay at the beginning or end obviously your flight time dictates which is best, if you want easy access to the airport then use sofitel for the north or hilton for the south as they are both connected to the terminals , they are more costly than using hotels a short distance away with a bus transfer, but far more covenient.

POTENTIAL STRIKE ACTION
http://www.fhr-net.co.uk/travel_news/2147/gatwick_airport_baggage_staff_threaten_to_strike/

Flew back into Gatwick for the first time this year and was surprised at the queues in passport control this year, does anyone know why, I heard rumours of a strike by immigration a few weeks ago but nothing since. Talking to people in the queue they were also surprised at the length of the wait, is it just more flights etc (it was north terminal), just curious as to why this is happening, if it is more stringent security then fine. Please feel free to move this mods if in the wrong forum. Nels

Nels,

LGW is known for it's long queues at security in peak season. It due to tighter security checks and the volume of passengers.

Darren

I think more to the fact that at long last they are trying to protect our borders and now actually LOOK at the passports rather than wave people through.

We are due to fly to Barbados next Thursday with Virgin from Gatwick and we are staying at the Sofitel the night before our flight, using APH car park and transfer.
What I would like to know is as we are staying in a hotel (the sofitel) in the North terminal and the Virgin terminal is in the South terminal and would like to take advantage of Virgins twilight check in would it be easy to transfer from the North to South terminal to check in and transfer back to the North for our night at the Sofitel?.
I hear there is a monorail. Is this easy to catch and I also hear that is is closed for Maintanence in September, we fly out on the 3rd Sept.
Thanks in advance for any help.

puds,

According to this article from FHR the mono rail is not closing until September 28th.

http://www.fhr-net.co.uk/travel_news/2092/gatwick_airport_monorail_to_close/

So your travels wont be interupted.

Angie.

I have flown in & out of Gatwick just 3 times, but each time the wait for the baggage on return was horrendous. With such a long walk to the baggage reclaim area, you'd expect not to have to wait at all. Last week we waited close on half an hour before the cases started to appear. For ages then only 5 or 6 cases were being put on the carousel. They could do with lessons from the Dominican Republic - A tiny airport with hardly any staff & the cases were out in a matter of minutes. I know the volume of people going through Gatwick is greater, but they definitely need a better system.

Thanks for that Angie.

Totally agree Helen. I can't see any reason for the huge wait every time!

We tend to fly from the North Terminal and also during the winter months. Usually by the time we get to the carousel the bags have started to appear and we are on our way very quickly.

I think it is inevitable that during the busy peak season you will have to wait a while. There may be more flights coming in then there are carousels available.

Pippa

There were quite a few empty carousels Pippa - it was just that the bags took an age to start coming.

Helen, you sort of answered your own question in knowing that the volume of people travelling through Gatwick is greater. With all respect to the tiny airport in DR its not the busiest single runway airport in the world , i think we need to put things in to prespective, of course the walk from the plane to passport control can be quite long, obviously there's lots of people there waiting for clearance, then the usual wait for bags which is frustrating. I usually find i'm out the front of the airport about 1 hour from landing, the best has been 30 mins, which i was really impressed with.
The airlines have a contract with ground handling who sort out the baggage to the carousels, there are 4 companies who do this and competition is fierce with airlines often taking who offers the cheapest contract, and i suppose if you offer a cheap contract to airline "X" you operate with minimal staff and the tightest overheads possible , it might be possible to think that if airlines paid more then more baggage handlers would be getting bags to the carousels quicker, but then we would be paying more for our travel?

At one moment this summer Gatwick achieved 60 plane movements in one hour, i'm sure many small airports around the world probably don't do that in a day, so how Gatwick could possibly learn lessons from them i'm not too sure. At times Gatwick processes 80,000 people per day going out , so the same coming back , so baggage handlers are moving 160,000 peoples bags each day, i'm sure they would like to go the DR for some lessons , i imagine it would be like a holiday!!!

andy - there was only one other carousel with baggage on - from a Florida flight, so yes I would have expected the bags to be there a lot quicker. I've flown from many airports over the years, & have never been in one that's as slow as Gatwick.

Puds1970, as Angie said the monorail is operating until the end of september, so you will be able to use it to transfer back and forth, it takes about 2 mins with a wait of about 2 mins if you've just missed one! The Sofitel is a lovely hotel having stayed there once and due to again in november, i don't know if you have a meal package with your stay because if you're looking for somewhere for an evening meal then the south terminal offers more places to eat than the north, so as you check-in your bags then you could stay there to eat instead of too-ing and fro-ing. Its really good being able to do twilight check-in as it makes the day of travel so less stressful especially with a long flight ahead , enjoy your stay, flight and holiday.

Helen , as i explained earlier about ground handling services , airlines have their contracted service and there would be a team of handlers to unload your flight, the florida flight would probably be a different company, there's not an army of handlers unloading any plane as it turns up to speed up the process. In a small airport like in DR there would be one handling team that simply has to drive a truck across the apron to the plane , unload and drive back the 20 odd yards and unload it in the terminal, at Gatwick as i'm sure you appreciate it being of a bigger size , the planes are further away , the distances are greater and the simple fact being that they are not the only plane being unloaded and using the baggage system. There are plenty of carousels and they would be used in order, the reason that only one other has luggage is that the others have been cleared already previous to you being there and the other spare ones will soon be in use with luggage for passengers who are following you.
I've also flown to many other airports and they seem quicker but to be blunt they are "tinpot" in comparison to Gatwicks flow of traffic. I really don't think people understand the sheer scale of the operation and i think remarks that constantly put down Gatwick and other UK airports are just simply made without considering the true facts.
The total number of passengers per year through SIX DR airports is 7.5million , total through Gatwick is 35million, of course things are going to take longer to do because of the sheer scale of it all. Its a bit like football grounds , because Wigan's ground empties faster its better than Old Trafford because it takes longer, therefore Old Trafford is too slow and could learn a few lessons from them !!

The thing that I don't understand is why only 5 or 6 cases start going around on their own. Then it's a good while before the next handful show up. It takes a good while to get them on with any regularity. You'd think that once the carousel started up, they would be piled on together - at least until the first trailerful had been unloaded.

Isn't that the same anywhere? perhaps they've ..... gone for a teabreak! you know i think we've got to remember that baggage handlers have an extremely physical job and the pay is not too great, the companies cut their prices to the bone to win airline contracts , so the handling companies are asking/making workers do more work as they're not replacing staff in order to keep their costs low. A while ago a new agency was allowed to bid for contracts at Gatwick this led to price-cutting and eventually Aviance who had been in business for years said it could no longer compete and withdrew from Gatwick, in the persuit of offering customers the lowest prices there will always be a casualty and in my opinion a dumbing down of service/standards, its a bit of you get what you pay for, if airlines paid a bit more for baggage services i'm sure it might improve the service, but airlines would pass on the extra cost to us, and we all look for the cheapest price, so the airlines try to keep costs low, and we wait a bit more longer for our bags.

The thing that I don't understand is why only 5 or 6 cases start going around on their own

I've noticed this on many occasions as well. I have a theory!

You know how in this Country we like to measure everything for performance standards (bit like the NHS cutting waiting times to see a doctor by simply not allowing you to make a doctors appointment more than a day out), I believe the ground handler company is measured on the performance between the bags coming off the aircraft to the time the bags arrive on the luggage belt in the reclaim area. Sounds like a reasonable idea and a key performance indicator for what could be a good service level agreement - BUT - I think the timings are taken between the first set of bags being delivered to the belt rather than the measurement perhaps more accurately applied to the last bags being delivered. So, the understaffed baggage team simply find that they can still hit their performance targets by quickly unloading the first container of bags, move on to a second or third flight and do the same, then back to flight #1 to continue unloading (remember - they have already hit their target so no rush now....)

Call me an old cynic...