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I am travelling from Heathrow to Alicante which involves changing at Madrid from BA to Air Nostrum. Although it’s one PNR, I assume I shall have to collect my luggage at Madrid as it’s a domestic collection. I have experienced slow delivery of bags at Madrid but that was a few years ago. Does anyone have recent experience of this? Is two hours sufficient time ?
I am not worried about the return as there are plenty of later flights to Heathrow.
Any feedback would be helpful. Thank you.@Rma – BA should be able, on a single PNR, to tag your bags directly to Alicante, even from non-Schengen (UK) to domestic. You will still need to clear immigration at T4S which can be very quick or quite slow! If you did have to collect bags, delivery does remain slow. Re departure gate for Air Nostrum, check carefully!
Thank you, especially for the tip about the Air Nostrum gate!
I would plan 3 hours if you need to pick up bag, re-check and pass security again.
You won’t collect your bags, just clear immigration assuming single ticket. 2hrs is ok if you’re on time or there abouts, it’s quite a distance to cover with immigration and a train involved through to the gates these flights usually depart from so don’t dilly dally too much!
Two hours should be plenty, BA will tag any checked bags to final destination.
As above you need to clear immigration, there’s also another security check as you enter T4.
T4S-T4 is via a shuttle train, it’s quite efficient, I find using the lifts rather than the escalators is faster. Even with checked baggage I’ve easily made a one-hour BA-IB connection.
If you do get a delay inbound to MAD, both immigration and security have a separate lane for people on short connections.
After a delayed BA inbound caused a missed connection, I ended up on an Air Nostrum flight, from memory it was at the very furthest gate of T4, which is a loooooooong terminal, but there are moving walkways to speed things up.
I am travelling from Heathrow to Alicante which involves changing at Madrid from BA to Air Nostrum. Although it’s one PNR, I assume I shall have to collect my luggage at Madrid as it’s a domestic collection. I have experienced slow delivery of bags at Madrid but that was a few years ago. Does anyone have recent experience of this? Is two hours sufficient time ?
I am not worried about the return as there are plenty of later flights to Heathrow.
Any feedback would be helpful. Thank you.Your Air Nostrum flights will mostly likely depart from the North end of T4 K92 – K98, which have walkways down to the lower level walkout gates. (Unless IB decide to use an Airbridge gate as a bus gate).
Hand luggage is gate checked unless small for the Air Nostrum flight (small backpack okay, wheelie bag will be checked).
To quote the flying enthusiasts of another nature: this is the way.
A few steps from here: a children’s play area with a slide. Ostrich may have partaken in slide activity at 04:00AM, may have carted himself around in one of the strollers with the little flags and there may or may not be video evidence of this.
@titaniumostrich Some unexpected entertainment for that time of the morning for whoever was watching the CCTV cameras!!
To slightly hijack the post, any advice on doing a very short turnaround at MAD?
When I amended my IB reward flights for my MAD-LIM trip from May to June I was left with the cash ticket LGW-MAD on IB Express that was pretty much non-amendable/refundable. So rather than just write it off, I am still flying the segment to add to my tally for RJ and bought a cheap BA flight back to LHR, but the same day as I have no annual leave left.
Outbound time has changed slightly so I now have 4 hours between flights.
It should be fine, but if there’s any delays could be tight. I will only have an under seat rucksack obviously. Any tips that might reduce my stress levels if delays do occur?
@titaniumostrich Some unexpected entertainment for that time of the morning for whoever was watching the CCTV cameras!!
To slightly hijack the post, any advice on doing a very short turnaround at MAD?
When I amended my IB reward flights for my MAD-LIM trip from May to June I was left with the cash ticket LGW-MAD on IB Express that was pretty much non-amendable/refundable. So rather than just write it off, I am still flying the segment to add to my tally for RJ and bought a cheap BA flight back to LHR, but the same day as I have no annual leave left.
Outbound time has changed slightly so I now have 4 hours between flights.
It should be fine, but if there’s any delays could be tight. I will only have an under seat rucksack obviously. Any tips that might reduce my stress levels if delays do occur?
Assuming nothing changes and the IB Express leaves from T4S (which it should) that is an easy self transfer – just come of the LIM plane and head to connections in the centre of the terminal- through the security scanner and down the escalator to departures. You’ll need your onward boarding pass else there is an IB service desk nearby.
I say easy – it can get pretty rammed with all the LH South/Central America planes landing en masse.
@e14 Apologies I think my post may have been confusing as I included a perhaps unnecessary mention of my LIM flight – I was trying to explain in order to preempt anyone telling me I was daft for flying out to MAD and then straight back again!
What I am doing is flying LGW-MAD on an IB Express flight and then 4 hours later flying MAD-LHR on BA, so separate tickets no protection if the outbound is delayed. Any tips for a quick turnaround in case of delays?
@tootsci – it’s exactly the same process arriving from/departing to the UK. Both flights should be within T4S so you just need to through connections security on the arrivals level then down to departures. There’s no immigration or train involved, but the walks from/to gates can be long; it’s a very long building! No real tips in the event of delays, save walking fast and pushing to the front of security although it is often deserted. Also avoid bigger liquids if in a rush; they are allowed, but go through a special check.
If you have access to the IB Velázquez lounge, it is signposted but still quite hidden on the edge of the main duty free area, with a huge shiny Iberia red wall.
@tootsci, people on Flyertalk do this kind of thing a lot – there might be a thread over there where they can help you. Let us know how you get on as in either April 26 or 27 I might be doing this kind of thing! I’ve got a few IB bookings over the coming months so will be getting reacquainted with MAD after many years.
In case I decide to go down the RJ route (and it still exists by then), how are you doing this? Booking via BA/IB but adding your RJ number during the process?
@JDB and @e14 Great, thanks, that sounds like it should be straightforward, fingers crossed. And thanks for the tip on finding the lounge. At least I can use all of it as a reccy for the big trip the following month.
@NorthernLass Thanks, yes I’ll have a look at FT as well. I can report back, but you’ll be doing it before me by the sounds of it? I’m doing the LGW-MAD-LHR hop on the Sunday of the May BH weekend. Likewise I’ve not been to MAD for > 10 years.In terms of RJ, I booked via BA and have added my RJ FFN to the inbound BA booking via MMB on RAM. For the outbound I booked via IB and have the dreaded 5 digit booking reference but I must have managed to enter my RJ FFN at some point during the booking process as it’s there in my booking. Otherwise I don’t know how I would have done so as I couldn’t have done anything with the 5 digits on RAM. As an aside, as I remember you’ve talked about the 5 digits IB issue before, when I cancelled the first MAD-LIM-MAD-LHR Avios redemption that I booked through BA, the cancellation email showed both the 6 digit BA reference I already had, plus the 5 digit IB reference number that I’d not seen anywhere else!
Of the 3 flights I have credited to RJ so far, 2 happened automatically, and 1 didn’t despite the RJ number being there. A screenshot of my boarding pass from my Apple Wallet showing that and a screenshot of the booking confirmation email sent to the RJ customer service email sorted it out in a couple of weeks. I think the RJ CS team are small as emails only seem to come from 2 people, and no doubt overworked with the influx of new members, so patience is required but it does get sorted in my experience
@NorthernLass I wrote a whole post saying thanks including to @JDB and @e14, with an explanation of my bookings with regard to the RJ FFP but it seems to have disappeared, perhaps because I edited it too quickly. If it doesn’t reappear I’ll rewrite this evening
You should be fine on the T4S-T4S transfer, don’t worry.
For some perspective: the mileage run I did involved evening Ibiza returns, followed by night flights out to Gran Canaria (direct turnarounds at 02:45AM, not recommended) which usually returned in the morning to a remote stand at T4S. Even with the bus to the terminal, security & train to T4 I managed to board the next AM flight out to [insert multiple Galician/Asturian cities here] for my final 24hr turnaround, all within a 30min window. To move this even more offtopic: I do not recommend this at all. LPA involves running out of the airport and through security again. And at 06:00AM you really want a shower. And you desperately want to stay in Madrid.
I say easy – it can get pretty rammed with all the LH South/Central America planes landing en masse.
100% agree on this, had this in all above scenarios as well. I broke my cardinal rule and did not queue: jump the line to one of the security staff at one of the security rows and point out with some urgency you have a short connection. With a few please and thank you’s you won’t be sent back. (To be fair, 75% in the line have a short connection.)
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