Flight Nurse PAULINE RANSFORD writes on the difficulty of getting from international to domestic flights at London's Gatwick Airport and wonders if anyone else has come up the same problems
Transfer times at LGW: When is 'enough' not really enough?
Recently I have undertaken two repatriations which had onward flights to Manchester from Gatwick. Both were early morning flights and I wonder if this caused the ensuing problems. I would like to alert others to how long it now takes to transfer at Gatwick.
My first patient and I travelled from Spain and she required WCHS wheelchair assistance. At Gatwick a wheelchair arrived quite quickly and we were off loaded from the aircraft. The wheelchair assistant took us though passport control, the baggage hall, customs and into the arrivals hall, where we were met by another wheelchair assistant to take us, after completing some paperwork, to security.
At security there was further paperwork to complete and we were then handed over to another wheelchair assistant to go through security and into the departure lounge, where there was another set of paperwork to complete.
All of this left us with very little time to get on board and the whole procedure took about an hour.
And even tighter ...
The second patient came from Malta. There were three people who needed assistance, one of which was a WCHC carry on passenger.
At Gatwick a buggy was sent with one wheelchair assistant. My patient and another traveller were loaded onto the buggy. As the third traveller needed a carry off we had to wait for another wheelchair assistant to arrive (although in fact, he never did). After about 30 minutes of waiting, we were finally taken through the usual channels.
In the arrivals hall my patient was transferred from the buggy to a wheelchair. I was getting a little worried as time was passing and we were still completing paperwork - luckily I already had our boarding passes. We got as far as the area prior to security before, you guessed it, we changed wheelchair assistant again and encountered yet more paperwork ...
Once through security we had to stop again (yes, more paperwork), then finally got through to departures. We arrived at the aircraft five minutes before takeoff.
Why this convoluted system?
With the Malta transfer, we had over two hours before the flight to Manchester and we very nearly missed it.
I do understand about security, but this system was, to say the least, convoluted. Both my patients were a little distressed by all this changing of assistants and felt they had been rushed.
Perhaps travel agents, assistance companies and flight nurses should be made aware of possible time delays at Gatwick and, after taking my experiences into account, ensure there is appropriate time between connecting flights.