Australia flight/immunisation questions

cmyk

Hey guys, wonder can someone a bit more travelled help me out, heading to australia next week and just looking through my ticket and have a couple of question's.

Flying dublin - london - singapore - sydney. I have only 2hrs from landing in heathrow to get the connecting flight (singapore airlines). (Terminal 1 to terminal 3 I think) I have been told by others that this will be quite tight:o, is this correct?

Also my ticket gives immunisation guidelines of Diptheria/Tetanus/Polio, are these really needed to gain entry, strongly recommended or just a guide, and is there much involved in getting them? ie any side effects etc.

Thanks in advance.

lollb

hi when you are checking in in dublin tell them you want your bags checked through for the whole jouney............. however some airlines wont do this (bmi) but you will have enought time to collect your lugage and get to the other terminal.

with regard to immunisations i am sure that is only a guide, i didnt get any specical immunisations when i went 12 months ago

hope this helps.......... enjoy your trip wish i was heading back!!:D

The Sweeper

cmyk, are you flying throughout with the same airline?

If you book a "trip" with one airline, e.g. two, three four or more connecting flights, then that airline will look after you - so if your first flight is delayed, causing you to miss connections, the airline will organise for you to go on the next available flights. They won't charge you for this.

If you've booked connections yourself - e.g say BA/Qantas are taking you from London to Australia, but you booked the Dublin-London leg yourself with Ryanair, and Ryanair are delayed - then it's your own responsibility and you have effectively missed your flight.

It doesn't help that an independent booking means you won't be able to check baggage through to Australia from Dublin, so yes, two hours is pretty tight to transfer at Heathrow. It's not that it takes two hours, but you have all of the mitigating circumstances - flight delays, baggage delays, finding your way between terminals, all with the low-lying stress of 'donthavemuchtimedonthavemuchtime'.

If your Dublin-London leg is a separate booking, I'd change it and rebook an earlier flight just for peace of mind. If it isn't a separate booking, don't stress about it.

I heard one good recent story - friends of mine were travelling Virgin Atlantic London to Australia. They missed their flight by minutes because an independently booked connection with BA from Scotland down to Heathrow arrived late. There are a number of other circumstances - e.g. it was a the traffic controllers strike and they were trying to get in touch with Virgin and by the time they got to the airport, their flight was on the tarmac but they just couldn't make the connection.

Anyway - Virgin simply allowed them to take the same flight the following day, with no charge for a new ticket or for seat reassignment. They haven't stopped singing their praises since!

cmyk

Thanks guys, my girlfriend went over on exactly the same flights 3 weeks ago, and think they said they'd check her bags all the way through. I booked the whole thing through trailfinders. Its aer lingus to london and singapore airlines the rest of the way, all on the same e-ticket, so I'll prob be alright?