Give us the flight number, not a time
This is the whole trick, and it is worth understanding rather than just doing.
A booking made for 'Tuesday, 14:30' is a booking for 14:30. A booking made for 'flight BA1234, arriving Tuesday' is a booking tied to that aircraft. We check the flight's status before dispatching, so if it lands at 17:15 instead of 14:30, the driver leaves to meet the 17:15 arrival.
Flight monitoring is standard on every airport arrival we take, and there is nothing for you to do about it.
How the waiting window works
Landing is not arriving. Taxiing to a stand, walking the terminal, passport control and baggage reclaim routinely add 30 to 45 minutes at a UK airport, and considerably more on a bad night when several wide-bodies come in together.
So the driver is parked and inside the terminal with a name board from 30 minutes after your flight lands, not circling the drop-off. They will text and call you when they are on their way. What we ask in return is one thing: make contact within 45 minutes of landing, so we know you are through. Beyond the allotted period, waiting is charged at £15 for each additional 30 minutes, and if there is no contact at all within 45 minutes the booking is cancelled. Two seconds on your phone as you clear passport control avoids all of that.
If your flight is cancelled
Call us or reply to your confirmation email as soon as you know. We will move the booking to your new flight, or cancel it. Airline cancellations and severe weather are exactly the special circumstances our cancellation policy covers, and we look at them case by case rather than applying the standard timescales.
If you have been rebooked onto a different flight, or a different airport entirely, tell us the new flight number. Rerouting a Bristol arrival to a Heathrow or Gatwick one is straightforward if we know in time; it is a much harder problem at midnight.
If you are diverted
Diversions usually happen while you are in the air, so we often see it before you can tell us — we are watching the flight. What we do not know is whether the airline is coaching you on to your original destination or leaving you where you landed.
Send us a message as soon as you have your phone on and know the plan. If the airline is putting you on a coach to Bristol, we will meet the coach. If you are stuck at another airport, we can either come to you as a long-distance transfer or cancel without charge, whichever you prefer.
If you are the one waiting at home
If you are collecting someone else — or have booked a car for a relative — put your own mobile number on the booking as well as theirs. Then we can reach you when their phone is still in flight mode, and you are not standing in an arrivals hall guessing.
For an outbound flight that is delayed, do not cancel the taxi. Get to the airport: airlines have been known to recover time, and being at the terminal is the only position from which you can be rebooked quickly.
What we need on the booking
The flight number and the arrival airport and terminal. Your mobile number, and ideally a second one for whoever is at the other end. And a note if you are connecting onward to another flight, ferry or train, because then we plan the pick-up around your connection rather than just your landing.
Everything else we can handle. The delay is the airline's problem; the car should never be yours.
