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Tallinn to London weekend travel experience October 2023

This blog post is about my experience of travelling from Tallinn to London for a weekend to be part of the family celebrations. So we planned the weekend trip to London from Tallinn, the last week of September. And I wish we had more time. Knowing my wife and I are full-time working, it was tricky to spare more time out and spend in London with family. My mom, brother and his family all coming to London to celebrate my niece’s first birthday as she turned 1 year old on 30th September.

Tallinn to London Flights

My brother-in-law visited us from Manchester recently and he flew from London to Tallinn via Wizz Air. And he bought tickets dirt cheap. We were like how is this possible? we were a little scandalised and wanted to book Tallinn to London flights for ourselves to see if we were lucky enough to get cheap flights. No wonder, we got super cheap flights from Tallinn to London via Wizz Air. Of course, there are hidden charges for literally everything like seat selection, meals, and small trolley baggage. But still, it turned out to be cheaper than booking flights from Ryanair and Air Baltic.

There are many other airlines as well which can help you travel without any hassle to London depending on the latest deals and offers running by the airline when you are booking your Tallinn to London Flight. There are frequent flights from Air Baltic, Sas, KLM, Finnair, LOT, and Norwegian Airlines. All outbound flights from Tallinn take off from Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport (TLL). London has various airports where inbound flights from Tallinn land like London Heathrow Airport (LHR), London Gatwick Airport (LGW), Luton Airport (LTN)

We suggest you book your flights in advance and search for the best flights we have partnered with Skyscanner. You can search for Tallinn to London flights below:

Wizz Air Tallinn to London Journey

So we bought the ticket and I also bought check-in baggage for myself, as we had to get a lot of shopping done from London and wanted to take extra luggage for both sides. Our flight was at 9.55 pm on Friday. We reached Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport TLL in time and did our check-in for the luggage we bought. The check-in was smooth as there were hardly any queues or crowds buying luggage on a budget airline. Another reason was that not many flights were taking off during that time of the night on Friday.

Tallinn to London Wizz Air aircraft
Tallinn to London Wizz Air aircraft

The aircraft Airbus A320 was pretty small still it had about 32 rows of seats. Each row had 6 seats, 3 seats on each side. The airline was almost full few seats here and there were empty. The take-off was pretty smooth, and snacks and service were pretty good onboard as well. The journey in total was around 3 hours.

Luton Airport Experience

We landed at Luton Airport on time and had no hassles as such in the immigration queue. Rather we were surprised that the queue for the non-British passport and European passport holders was very small. So it took us like 10-15 minutes to get the UK Border immigration done. The baggage collection process was relatively smooth as well. The airport for some reason was very untidy we were not sure why it was so unclean all around.

Luton Airport
Luton Airport

Train Strikes at Luton Airport

We went to the train ticket counter to book our tickets to Central London, as my family lives in East Ham. There was no one at the ticket counter and everyone was buying the tickets from the ticket vending machine. So we booked the one-way ticket for £ 22 each Victoria Station, Central London. After buying the tickets, we walked to the train station which was outside the main gate of the airport. By the time we came out to take a train to Central London, it was midnight past. We came to know that train strikes are starting at midnight. And we were shell-shocked to know.

There was no one to guide us on what to do and what transport to take. After asking some travellers outside who were stuck like us they shared that National Express Coach buses are running from the airport to the city centre. they are the only options we have now. So we immediately ran back inside the airport to get a refund for the ticket but there was no one to assist us. We then went back to the same vending machines, there we saw the machines for the coach buses as well. We booked our tickets yet again and went out to the bus stand which was right out of the airport gates on the right-hand side.

National Express Bus Coach Experience

We finally got the bus and boarded. The bus was full of travellers who had been stuck due to train strikes. The driver started moving at the right time stating the tickets we bought. As it was way too late 2 am or so, the driver was stopping at many places which were not part of the route, just as a gesture for the people who were stuck due to public transport strikes all across London City. We were supposed to reach London Victoria in 1 hour and 15 minutes, however it took almost 1 hour 40 minutes to reach London Victoria.

national express
National Express
To summarise, While I have been to London many times, the travel experience since the time I Landed at Luton airport has been not great, especially since the country is fighting salary hikes and transport strikes demanded by the public transport workers. The government may be doing all that it can to improve the situation, but London has changed a lot, ever since I first went to London in 2006.

I would suggest planning and booking your travel in advance, I missed it myself this time a reminder to myself as well to all the London tour package customers and readers. To know more about Tallinn to London Tours and packaged click here to know more.

Luton is officially the best airport in London

Luton is officially the best airport in London

In quite frankly shocking news, Luton has been named the best airport in London by a new study.

The study by The Original Tour, analysed open data from all six London airports along with data from the UK Civil Aviation Authority to find this result.

Each of the six main airports that service London was given a percentage rating based on flight delays, queueing times, travel fares and connection times and Luton came out on top.

The study found that you can get to Luton in just 46 minutes from the city centre, compared to 30 minutes to get to Heathrow and 40 minutes to get to London City. It takes over an hour to get to both Gatwick and Stansted and London Southend takes the longest at 83 minutes.

Luton was found to be the overall winner due to it having the shortest average delay time (7.1 minutes), one of the shortest average queueing times (6.06 minutes) and one of the cheapest travel fares (£275.55 to North America).

Gatwick proved to have the shortest security queueing times at four minutes while you have to wait over 10 minutes on average in a security queue at Stansted.

London City was given the title of London’s worst airport after the data found that it is the most expensive airport to fly from, and has long security queueing times and a high chance of delays.

You can see the full ranking below:

  1. Luton
  2. Gatwick
  3. Stansted
  4. Heathrow
  5. London Southend
  6. London City

Luton is an often-overlooked London airport, but it might be time to consider it when booking your next flight. Want to know more details about the 6 London Airport? Check out a detailed post done by us detailing the London Airport and its services. Check out our London tour packages here.