In message .com,
David of Broadway writes

Fair enough. It would have been nice if (a) TfL had informed the
airlines well in advance and (b) the airlines cared and were willing to
pass the information on to their customers. Had I known before booking
my flight, I would probably have flown out a day earlier to avoid the
issue.

BAA (Who own Heathrow Airport) will have set the timescales as it's they
who are building the T5 extension. I'm sure they were fully in the loop
as to when this was likely to happen.

Perhaps LUL/TfL only had definite confirmation a few weeks ago that the
date would happen though? We only had confirmation at work about 3
weeks ago that the new timetable would happen on 17 September and there
were posters put up from then.

In any event, it's only the one station that's closed as there will be a
5 minute service into central London from Hatton Cross on all days.

Sure, but it's a pretty important station, especially given the time
constraints and the luggage issues that I mentioned earlier.

Having flown out of T4 myself a few months ago whilst this blockade was
on, I have to say the journey from Hatton Cross to T4 (and the one to
T123 would be similar) was no worse than the merry jaunt around
Amsterdam Schipol to change planes. It took me about 10 minutes extra
on my journey, hardly worth getting excited about in the great scheme of
things. YMMV.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)