On this page (8 sections)
Where do you find live flight times?
Most people reach this page in one of two situations. Either you are flying and orienting yourself before or at the airport, working out which terminal you need, how early to get there and where to stand. Or you are meeting or sending someone, and you want to know when their flight lands or leaves. Both start from the same place: the live board.
The live boards on this site run on the airport's own operational feed, the same data the terminal screens and the airlines work from, so it is the board to trust rather than a third-party flight tracker. Live arrivals at Heathrow carries the inbound board together with the things the raw board leaves out: meeting points, baggage reclaim and onward travel. Live departures at Heathrow carries the outbound board with the security, check-in and gate context. A departure gate is published around 45 to 60 minutes before boarding, so the board is the thing to watch in the last hour, not the booking confirmation. For a last-minute change to one specific flight, the operating airline's app is fastest, since it pushes the gate and any delay straight to your phone.
The scale behind those boards is worth a sentence. Heathrow runs about 1,300 flights a day across four terminals, carrying over 200,000 passengers between roughly 230 destinations in 85 countries on more than 80 airlines. That is a flight every 45 seconds or so, close to the legal cap of 480,000 flights a year, and it made 2025 a record year at 84.5 million passengers. For anything more than a day ahead, the live boards do not reach far enough; the year-ahead Heathrow flight timetable lists every scheduled flight up to 12 months out by date, airline and route.
How do the four terminals split the flights?
Which terminal you want is decided by the airline, not the destination. Heathrow groups its four terminals loosely by airline alliance, though several carriers sit outside the pattern, so treat the grouping as a starting point and check your specific airline.
Terminal 2, the Queen's Terminal, is the Star Alliance base: Lufthansa, United Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air Canada and ANA among them, with Aer Lingus the long-standing exception and ITA Airways the newest arrival since spring 2026. Terminal 3 holds most of oneworld, including American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and Qantas, plus Virgin Atlantic and Delta Air Lines, kept together by their transatlantic joint venture. Terminal 4 is the SkyTeam base, with Air France, KLM and Korean Air, alongside Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways. Terminal 5 is British Airways and Iberia only.
If you know your airline, airlines by terminal has the full per-carrier table with the edge cases flagged, and airline contacts covers how to reach the airline about a booking, bag or delay. If you are not sure, the which terminal lookup resolves it by airline name. The boarding pass and the airline's confirmation email both print the terminal, and on the day the live departures board is the safest source if a recent terminal move is possible.
Arrivals or departures: which page do you need?
The two live boards split the site neatly, because the questions on either side of a flight are different.
On the way out, the sequence is check in, drop bags, clear security, find the gate. Live departures at Heathrow covers the timing end to end, and routes on to the detail. Airline check-in opening times vary by carrier: desks open as early as 03:30 for British Airways First and Club at Terminal 5, and about two hours before a short-haul flight for most carriers. Short-haul check-in usually closes 45 minutes before departure, long-haul 60 minutes, and once it closes the airline can refuse boarding even with the aircraft still at the gate.
On the way in, the sequence is land, clear the border if you are arriving internationally, collect bags, meet your party. Live arrivals at Heathrow covers the timing and the onward steps. First bags reach the carousel about 20 to 30 minutes after a short-haul arrival and 35 to 50 minutes after a long-haul one, so the person meeting a flight has a realistic gap to plan around rather than the landing time alone.
How do connections work at Heathrow?
If Heathrow is a stop rather than your start or end, the question is how long you have and whether your bags are checked through. The airline's published minimum connection time for the itinerary is the figure that matters, and the booking system will not sell a connection below it.
As a guide, Heathrow's standard minimum is about 1 hour for a connection within a single terminal and 1 hour 30 minutes for one that crosses terminals, on a single ticket with bags checked through to the final destination. On separate tickets, where you collect your bags, exit and check in again, allow at least 3 hours. Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 sit apart from the central T2 and T3 pair, so a cross-terminal connection uses the free airside Flight Connections coach, which runs every 6 to 10 minutes. Connecting flights at Heathrow sets out the full picture, including whether you clear UK immigration; transferring between terminals has the door-to-door times by route.
Where does Heathrow fly, and what is new for 2026?
Heathrow has the deepest network of any UK airport: about 230 destinations in 85 countries. The map skews long-haul, with North America and Asia anchoring the morning and evening waves and the Gulf, Africa and South America filling the wide-body gates through the day. Short-haul Europe runs from every terminal. UK domestic flights cover around 13 routes, mostly British Airways from Terminal 5 to Scotland and the English regions, plus Aer Lingus to Dublin from Terminal 2.
The network keeps moving. New and returning routes for 2026 include Rome with ITA Airways, Seattle with Alaska Airlines and St Louis with British Airways, which becomes Heathrow's 32nd United States destination. Pakistan International Airlines returned to Islamabad and Lahore, and Vueling added Seville as the tenth Spanish destination from the airport. Where Heathrow flies breaks the network down by region and carrier.
How do you book and choose a flight?
Booking a flight from Heathrow is the same as booking from anywhere in the UK: the airline's own site or a comparison engine. The one detail worth knowing is the operating-carrier point. A codeshare sold under one airline's flight number can be flown by another, and the terminal and the baggage rules follow the operating carrier, not the marketing one, so check who actually flies the aircraft before you settle on a connection or a terminal. Booking a flight from Heathrow covers the practical choices, the fare types and the protections that come with how you pay and book.
What happens when a flight goes wrong?
Delays and cancellations are the part of flying people are least ready for, and the part where knowing the rule saves the most. Every flight leaving a UK airport is covered by UK261, the retained version of the EU rule, whatever the airline's nationality. In short, a delay of three hours or more at your destination can earn fixed compensation of £220 to £520 depending on distance, separate from your right to be looked after with food and a hotel on a long wait, and from your right to a refund or a re-route on a cancellation. Compensation does not apply when the cause is genuinely outside the airline's control, such as severe weather or air traffic control strikes. Heathrow passenger rights sets out the amounts, the thresholds and how to claim, including the rail-disruption angle if your trouble was getting to the airport rather than leaving it.
Arriving from abroad: what do you need?
Landing at Heathrow from outside the UK adds three steps before you reach the exit: the border, your bags and customs. Most travellers from eligible countries clear the border at an eGate in a few minutes, which reads the passport chip and matches a live photo; the age threshold drops to 8 on 8 July 2026. Passport control and eGates covers who can use them and what to do if your document will not read. After bags, the green and red channels handle customs: walk through the green channel if you are inside your personal allowances, the red channel if you have something to declare. UK customs and allowances has the alcohol, tobacco and goods limits. If this is your first landing in the UK, a first-time arrival at Heathrow walks through the whole sequence from the air bridge to the train into London, including where to change money and how to pay for transport.