Great Western Coffee Shop

This article from London Reconnections (https://www.londonreconnections.com/2023/the-slow-death-of-heathrow-express/) is largely a rehash of previous "people are saying"s, but one factor that could not be known in advance was the impact of Crossrail. How would passengers' choice divide between faster but only to Paddington and slower and further? The answer should be coming in soon; I think it's more as impressions than proper statistics so far.

Pedantic of Purley's suggestion is that HEx is losing out in this competition, which does not surprise me for one. Old Oak common station will also have a big impact, which also speculated about. The rest is a matter of looking for clues about how this might all play out.

One point I think is missing from the analysis is the commercial interest of Heathrow (the airport). While HEx, as a separate "operator" that subcontracts the running of its trains, may have making a profit of some sort as its objective, that was set by HAL, its owners. They set up HEx, and built the line, to attract air passengers and airlines, and to contribute to overall profits. I'd guess that HEx's operating profit barely features on that spreadsheet. So if more Elizabeth Line trains attracts the punters, they will be all for it.

(Note that the current board structure hasn't got anywhere for Heathrow Express - but as this is equally about Crossrail and its impact on HEx, this looks the best slot.)

Rather more handwavy than one expects from London Reconnections - there's a lot of "probably" and "possibly" and "almost certainly" in there. I wonder if they have been tipped off by an unattributable source.

Not the best of their articles by some way if truth be told, but certainly the HEx services I've seen recently have been very quiet.  It has come as no surprise to me that is the case.

In May direct links from the airport to Stratford, Romford and Shenfield start and that will weaken its appeal even more, though I suspect even now people opt to change at Paddington and stay on the Elizabeth Line platforms rather than trudge upstairs to save a few minutes.

The main line paths HEx uses may be very useful in the future for more fast longer distance fast services, though the impact of Covid has put the brakes on that demand a little for the time being at least.

In a tourist group I have seen people say that the Heathrow Express Advance Tickets are in general quite a bit above the floor price of £5.50 and are completely unavailable on some days through May and June. From a revenue management perspective they must think they are not in a fire sale yet but they may also believe they no longer have to undercut the Elizabeth line.

When I have friends contact me about the best way to get from Heathrow to a central London hotel, I now recommend the Elizabeth Line.  Although my friends from the USA are obsessed with the concept of "Express" it has to be better ... right they say, until I point out they have to change trains at Paddington.

The only thing that could potentially save HEX would be the Western access to the GW Mainline allowing HEX services to access Reading.  I can see the HEX 387's being de-branded and returned to the general fleet.

The purpose of the Elizabeth Line is to abstract traffic from other services ... isn't it?   

Someone asked if "anyone with sense" would use Heathrow Express.   Minimal personal experience, but I have found it to be expensive compared to Heathrow Connect, but over marketed so that it catches visitors who don't know about the other option.   On the very, very times I flew to or from Heathrow, it was change at Ayes and Arlington and Reading ...

In view of the following information I am bound to say I think the predicted death of the Heathrow Express might take longer than expected or not happen at all.

SWTSMBO and I are travelling from LHR to SIN in mid-September (to attend a family wedding - yes, another one!) and I have just booked 2 HEx Railcard Fixed Day Single Standard tickets for the princely sum of £7.30 so the headline cheap tickets are certainly (?sometimes) easy to obtain if bought well in advance.

Looking on the TfL website Fares section I find:
'All Tube and Elizabeth journeys to and from Heathrow Airport are charged peak fares if they start, end or go through Zone 1.'

and:
'Peak: £12.20 - Monday to Friday from 0630 to 0930 and from 1600 to 1900.
Off Peak: £8.05 - At all other times including public holidays.'
(These are the 2023 Oyster with National Railcard prices)

So, unless I have completely misunderstood something, £3.65 for a 15 minute trip v £12.20 (although the journey planner says £11.50) for a 34 minute trip. No brainer (dons tin hat).
Also the change from GWR to HEx is generally much easier than GWR to TfL at PAD.   

HEX now sell advances from one year ahead of the date of travel. They used to cut off at three months but this has disappeared from the T&Cs so they are free to take them off sale earlier.

I also agree that Heathrow Express's demise may well be longer drawn out than is postulated at the moment.

This is a bit of an anecdote and it was all about a dozen years ago but I think it still has some relevance. Back then I had a contract in München which ran for a bit more than three years with the result that I travelled home to Reading every three to four weeks and I came to the conclusion that the reason slow access to airports is such a pain is that planes are so quick.

There is an hours time shift between the UK and Germany and my work started at 7.30 on Monday morning; it takes a shade over an hour to fly from Heathrow to München wheels off to wheels down. There are two S-Bahn routes between the Airport and the Hbf, S1 and S8 and each one takes about 45 minutes; each has a twenty minute frequency so there is an all-stations S-Bahn train from the airport to the city every ten minutes but to get to Pasing to the west of Munich - where I had a flat - the shortest route was the S1 to Laim where I changed to a west-bound service with an additional delay of typically eight or ten minutes late on a Sunday evening. The last thing I wanted to do is to sit in Neufahrn or Ismaning stations at 22.50, having left home at about 16.00, knowing that I still had the best part of an hour to go before I reached Pasing and could get to bed.

Getting from the Münchener Flughafen to my bed took just as long, if not longer, than the flight from Heathrow to München. One leg was 35 km long and the other 950 km.

I would happily have paid extra for a fast train link to München, I frequently did pay for a taxi direct from the airport to my flat. Getting into bed an hour earlier was well worth the €30 or so it cost me instead of the €9 or €10 [1] that the S-Bahn cost - and I still had to pay for a taxi at Pasing from the station to my flat as by that time on a Sunday night that bus route no longer ran.

Travel is not always about doing it the cheapest way possible.

[1] Prices from a dozen years ago.

Totally agree. Paying a bit extra, sometimes even quite a bit extra, can make a big difference to a journey experience.

Bear in mind that HAL will still own the tunnel into the airport from Airport Junction & thus will be charging TfL for access, so continue to obtain profit from it even when HEX finishes.

Talking of HEX, when does the contract with NR/ORR come to an end? HAL will then need to obtain another contract for open access into Paddington, and I can't see HAL giving HEX uip before that finish date. After that, who knows....

The track access agreement and the operating contract with GWR both run until 2028.

Can't see it going before that, there's probably an early-exit payment with GWR