David of Broadway wrote:
I have an 11:55 flight to New York out of Heathrow Terminal 3 on
Tuesday. How much time should I give myself to get there,
considering the planned shutdown of the Piccadilly line west of
Hatton Cross?

I should reckon on the journey from arrival at South Ken to arrival at
T3 taking 90 minutes, based on timings from the TfL Journey Planner
(which knows about the shutdown).

I will have luggage, although I should be able to carry it up the 33
steps at Hatton Cross with some difficulty.

There are porters available at Hatton Cross who will carry it up the
stairs for you if you wish.

I'm still worried about time. Do the buses tend to be overcrowded
or should I be able to fit on the first one that pulls up? And do
they tend to get stuck in traffic?

Don't know, because the buses to T123 will have many more passengers
than the existing ones to T4. Depends how many extra buses they manage
to lay on.

The posters in stations advise passengers to allow an
extra 20 minutes; is that realistic? Exactly where in the train
should I be to be closest to the exit at Hatton Cross? (No, I
don't have the Way Out book.)

The Journey Planner indicates that some journeys will need an extra 30
minutes. There are two exits from the platform, one near the back of the
train and one near the middle, as far as I remember.

Somebody suggested the 111 bus from Hounslow East instead. That
will avoid the steps and probably the crowds, but from what I can
see, the 111 takes a while to reach the airport. Having already
missed a flight last year out of LCY due to a bus that took just a
wee bit longer than I had expected, I think I'll pass.

I'd rather avoid Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect. (Why aren't
Underground tickets, including Oyster, valid on HE and HC during
these outages?)

Probably because BAA wouldn't play ball. The HEx/HC line into the
airport is BAA's private railway, they own HEx and have a share in HC
with First GW.

Also, for anybody who's flown out of Heathrow lately -- should I be
aiming to be at the airport about three hours before the flight or
is that overkill?

Ask your airline, unless anyone else knows.

And why is this outage taking place in the middle of the week
(immediately following a holiday weekend, yet!) in the first place?

Because, say LU, at this time of year the airport is busier at weekends.

At first I thought it was necessary to allow the line to Terminal 4
to reopen on 1 September. But according to the latest batch of
posters, the line to Terminal 4 isn't reopening until later in the
month!

17 September I believe.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)