How To Get To London From Luton Airport Without Stress
Landing at Luton after a long flight can be exhausting – but your journey is far from over! The next step is to reach the bustling city of London. The fastest choice is the train, the cheapest is the coach, and a taxi service is available for a direct route. It all comes down to what you value more: time or money. In my latest lifestyle article, I explore the best option for your flight time, budget, and luggage. Carry on reading to find out more.
What’s The Best Way To Get From Luton Airport To London?
There is no one universal answer to this question – a solo traveller with a backpack or a family of five with three suitcases have different requirements. Nevertheless, there are two options which sit comfortably at the top of the list – train and coach.
Train
Undeniably the fastest route into the city. From the terminal you can hop on a fully automated shuttle using the Luton Dart service, which runs around the clock. This service will get you to Luton Airport Parkway Station in under four minutes. From there, a Thameslink or an East Midlands Railway train will run to Central London (in a speedy time of 22-24 minutes). Furthermore, it calls at a variety of key stations including St Pancras International, Farringdon, or Blackfriars (although this largely depends on the service you use).
Coach
If you are on a tight budget, taking a coach from Luton Airport to London is your best bet (with some advance fares starting as low as £5!). National Express runs a regular service straight from the terminal to London Victoria Coach Station, with a journey time of around 75-90 minutes (fluctuating due to traffic on the M1). If your flight lands in the middle of the night, you can also take advantage of this service (unlike trains, which typically stop around midnight, or 1 am at the latest).
If you are travelling light and unphased by an extra half hour on the road, this is ultimately a smarter spend! The major trade-off is comfort during peak traffic – for instance, the M1 into London can crawl on a Friday evening, so try to avoid flights that land during rush hour if possible.
Breakdown Of The Journey
The train wins on speed – taking roughly 20 minutes to reach central London. The cost sits between £15-25 if you include the DART transfer. Conversely, a coach will take much longer (closer to an hour and a half with traffic), but you will enjoy massive savings! Very often you will pay under £15 when booked in advance (but sometimes it can drop to as little as £5). On the other end of the scale are taxis or a private transfer. The costs can easily range from £80-120 for a 60-90 minute journey (before you add any surcharge for a late-night pickup).
However, none of these numbers is set in stone – prices shift with demand, time of booking, and how far in advance you commit. As a rule, if you are short on time, take the train. If you are short on cash (and have plenty of patience!), then coach will earn its reputation as the cheapest way to get from Luton Airport to London.
For example, if two people are heading to a hotel near Victoria on a mid-week morning, the coach will probably make the most sense. It will drop you close by with substantial savings across both tickets. Swap this situation for a lone traveller on a business trip (for a lunchtime meeting), and the reliability and speed of a train are worth paying for.
Airport Parking For Car Users
For frequent flyers, using airport car parks can help cut travel costs (and avoid long waits for an Uber pickup to take you to the terminal). Instead, travellers can head straight to the airport (for example, a domestic passenger flying within the UK) in their own vehicle, and park until they return.
Experienced aeroplane users often bounce between different local airports (such as Luton and Heathrow) to get the best deal that week. You can make your life easier in this situation by heading online to carparking prices compare sites (such as Ezybook) so you can find the latest rate (cutting down your reseach time substantially).
Some people will often skip parking altogether, especially when you consider the distance from the terminals to your vehicle. Meet and Greet services are hugely popular – you simply drive straight up, hand the keys over right at the terminal, and someone else will deal with parking your car. No shuttle, no dragging bags across a car park – a game-changer if you are running out of time or travelling with large sums of bags.
Late Night Travel Or Heavy Luggage
Not every arrival will line up neatly with peak train times, and not every traveller will be packing light – these situations call for a change to your planning.
Train times are very specific (and at risk of delays, particularly in the UK), with potentially long wait times, and they don’t run through the night. On the other hand, National Express runs services both day and night, and you will often find coaches waiting outside the terminal at an hour when the rail timetable has gone quiet.
If you are transporting a large amount of bags, you will find fairly spacious luggage racks near the train doors (and a couple of large suitcases will not pose too much of a problem, unless it’s during rush hour). Coaches, however, will generally have much more generous hold space, which is often more forgiving for families with multiple holdalls and cases (far easier than trying to squeeze through a train carriage!).
In this area, a taxi is still king, especially with awkward items – for instance, sports accessories, a pushchair, heavy-duty camera equipment, or anything that does not neatly fold up and slot into an overhead rack. It may cost more, but if you are travelling as a group, splitting the fare will likely cost the same as an individual train ticket.
Final Thoughts
If you want to get from Luton Airport to central London, you have a variety of options available to you (with their own pros and cons) – for speed, train is the way to go (althought it will cost more), if you are on a budget, then coach should be your top choice (but it will take considerably longer), or a taxi which is far more private, but is highed- priced. The alternative is to use the local airport car park services (or a ‘meet and greet’ booking for speed). In short, the choice is yours, depending on your budget and overall preference.
Do you regularly make this trip? If so, what method works best for you? Please share your experiences in the comments section below.
