Every year I get the same phone call in the middle of December. Someone has booked a flight home for Christmas, looked up the train to Heathrow, and found that the train is not running. This year the call will come early, because Network Rail has already published its Christmas plan, and the headline for London is short: Paddington closes from Christmas Day. If you are flying out of Heathrow or Gatwick between 18 December and the first week of January, here is what is shut, what is open, and how I plan the festive airport runs.
Paddington shuts from Christmas Day
This is the big one. Network Rail is replacing Dolphin Junction near Slough, upgrading the overhead line and laying new track on the main line into Paddington, and the station closes to trains from Christmas Day while that happens. The Heathrow Express and the Elizabeth line will not link Paddington and Heathrow again until Thursday 31 December. Great Western trains to Wales and the West Country cannot get into Paddington at all until Monday 4 January 2027: the long-distance services start and finish at Reading, and some are diverted into Euston. The Elizabeth line keeps running through the central tunnels to the low-level platforms at Paddington, apart from Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but it goes no further west until 4 January.
In plain terms, from Boxing Day to Wednesday 30 December there is no train between central London and Heathrow except the Piccadilly line, which Heathrow itself puts at about 50 minutes to central London, with your cases, in the week when half of London is also carrying cases. The east side is no better. The line through Forest Gate is closed for ten days from Christmas Day, so no Elizabeth line or Greater Anglia trains run through there until the early hours of 4 January.
Network Rail calls the days between Christmas and New Year by far the quietest of the year on the railway. Quiet on the railway, yes. They are not the quiet days at the airports, and that is the whole problem.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day: nothing runs
Christmas Day is a Friday this year and, as every year, there are no trains on most routes in England and no service across most of London public transport. Transport for London ran a Sunday service on the Tube and the buses on Boxing Day last year with the Elizabeth line suspended, and Network Rail has confirmed again that most routes have no trains on Boxing Day either. Because the 26th falls on a Saturday, the Boxing Day bank holiday moves to Monday 28 December, which matters for one reason I care about: the Congestion Charge is suspended from Christmas Day to the New Year bank holiday inclusive, so it is off right through to Friday 1 January.
The airports do not shut. Heathrow expected its busiest Christmas Day ever last year, and Gatwick had 249 flights scheduled on the 25th. The terminals are calm on the 25th, and those are the bookings I like most. The roads are empty, the drop-off is a doorstep job, and I am home for lunch.
When the airports are actually busy
Neither airport has published its 2026 forecast yet, and I will not guess at numbers. What I can tell you is the shape of last year. Gatwick named Sunday 28 December as its busiest day of the whole break, with 757 flights, and Heathrow said it expected its busiest December on record. The pattern repeats every year: the Friday and the weekend before Christmas going out, and the Sunday after Christmas coming home. In 2026 that means Friday 18 to Sunday 20 December outbound, and Sunday 27 and Monday 28 December inbound, which is exactly the window with no Heathrow Express and no Elizabeth line to the airport.
Gatwick gives the advice on timing that I use for both airports: be there three hours before a long-haul flight and two hours before a short-haul one. I work backwards from that and add the road. On a December Friday afternoon the M4 from Chiswick is slower than you remember and the A4 through Hammersmith is slower still, so for a 6pm long-haul from Terminal 5 I would collect in Kensington at about 2pm. For Gatwick the M23 is usually honest but the A23 through Streatham is not, so I will go out on the A3 and round the M25 if the boards say so.
Presents, crackers and the boot
Two things from the airports own festive lists cause trouble at security every year. Wrapped presents cannot go in hand luggage, because they will be unwrapped if security wants to see inside, so wrap them when you arrive or put them in the hold. Up to two boxes of unopened crackers, and the mince pies, the pudding and even a frozen turkey, can travel in the cabin.
The boot is the other thing. A family going away for ten days with presents on top of the cases is a V-Class job, not a saloon job. The V-Class carries up to six passengers with the luggage behind the back row, and I have written about how the seats can be set face to face or all facing forward. For two people with two large cases the S-Class is the comfortable choice, and I will tell you honestly if what you have described will not fit. The fleet page has the rest.
Drop-off and the ten-minute rule
Heathrow charges £7 each time a vehicle enters the terminal drop-off zone, with a ten-minute maximum stay. Gatwick charges £10 for the first ten minutes outside the North and South Terminals, then £1 a minute after that. Both are included in the fixed price I quote, and they shape how I do the drop: cases out, trolley found, goodbye, gone. If you want longer than ten minutes at the kerb, say so when you book and I will use the short-stay car park instead. I covered the charges in my half-term airport post.
Coming home into a closed Paddington
If you land at Heathrow between Boxing Day and 30 December there is no train to Paddington, and if you land before 4 January there is no Elizabeth line west of Paddington either. If you can only book the car one way this Christmas, this is the week to book it for the arrival rather than the departure. I track the flight, so a late landing costs you nothing in waiting, and I am inside the terminal at the arrivals barrier with your name. Landing at six in the morning on 28 December with the family asleep in the back and nothing to carry past Hatton Cross is the version of coming home I would want for myself.
For visitors arriving from abroad, the UK Electronic Travel Authorisation now costs £20 and covers visits of up to six months. Sort it before you fly, not at the gate.
How I would plan it
- Flying out 18 to 23 December: the trains are running normally but the roads and the terminals are at their fullest. Set the collection time from the three-hour and two-hour advice, then add the road.
- Christmas Eve: trains finish earlier than usual. If your flight is late in the day, do not rely on the last Heathrow Express.
- Christmas Day: no trains, no Tube, empty roads, open airports. The easiest airport run of the year.
- Boxing Day to 30 December: no Heathrow Express, no Elizabeth line to Heathrow, Paddington shut. Book the car, in either direction.
- 31 December to 3 January: the Heathrow link is back. Great Western and the western Elizabeth line are not back until the 4th.
Every airport transfer is a fixed price quoted before you book, with the drop-off charge and any congestion charge included, and the price does not change if your flight is late. Send me the flight number and the date and I will send the quote back the same day. Christmas is the one journey of the year nobody wants to get wrong, and this year the railway has made that easier than usual.
