Two runways, and a swap at three
Heathrow runs on two parallel runways laid east to west. The northern one lies along the Bath Road, close enough that the hotel row can hear it breathe; the southern one sits beyond the central terminals, on the far side of the field. Aircraft take off and land into the wind, and for most of the year the wind here comes from the west. On those westerly days arrivals come in over London from the east, departures leave towards Windsor, and one runway handles every landing while the other handles every take off.
At three in the afternoon they swap. The runway that has been taking arrivals since the morning starts taking departures, and the other starts taking arrivals, so the neighbourhoods under each approach get half a day with a stream of aircraft overhead and half a day without it. Which runway gets the morning also rotates from one week to the next. For anybody choosing a night out here, that weekly rotation is the useful part, because it is planned and published rather than decided on the day.
Reading the pattern before you choose a night
Heathrow publishes the alternation timetable on its own website, set out week by week, with the landing runway named for the hours before three and the hours after. Find the week of your stay and read the afternoon line, because that is the half of the day that governs anything starting at six or seven in the evening. The morning line matters only if you are staying on past a late checkout, or sleeping through a day after a night flight.
Then allow for the wind. The timetable describes westerly days, and although westerly is the usual state of things, the wind swings round to the east for spells in most seasons, and when it does the airport turns round with it. Arrivals come in from the west over Colnbrook and Windsor, departures climb away over London, and the tidy afternoon swap does not apply in the same way. No timetable written in advance can promise you a Thursday in November, so read it as a strong likelihood, and look at the forecast the day before if the sound of the evening really matters.
The Bath Road row
The hotels on the Bath Road, from Harlington Corner west to the Longford roundabout, sit alongside the northern runway, which means that on a westerly day it is never idle beside them. For half the day it lands aircraft and for the other half it launches them. What the three o'clock switch changes on the row is the kind of sound rather than whether there is any. Arrivals come down the glide slope with the engines throttled back, a long steady rush one after another. Departures pass at full power, louder for the few seconds each one takes, and on a westerly day they begin their run at the eastern end of the runway and are climbing by the time they draw level with the western hotels.
Some guests want the runway. One hotel stands on the airport side of the road with nothing between it and the field, and the rooms on that side of it are known among aircraft watchers for arrivals sliding past the window at dusk. Nancy knows which of its rooms look at the runway and which look at the car park, and she will tell you honestly which you have been given. If you would rather forget the runway is there, the hotels across the road on the Hayes side put a whole building between you and the field, and a room on their north face takes the edge off whichever half of the day you are in. Ask for it when you book and say why: front desks on this road hear that request every day.
Longford and Cranford, the two ends
The ends of the runway are where the switch really registers, and they register it in opposite directions. Cranford, at the eastern end where the hotel frontages give way to houses, sits under the final approach to the northern runway. While that runway is taking the landings, arrivals pass low over the rooftops and the old estate at Cranford Park. While the landings are on the southern runway, the approach moves south with them and the sky over the village goes noticeably quieter. At Cranford, then, the week to choose is the one in which the northern runway lands in the morning and hands over at three.
Longford, at the western end, works the other way round. When the northern runway is launching departures, aircraft pass the village at full power on the climb out. When it is taking landings, they have touched down well to the east and are slowing or already turning off long before they come near the village. The week and half of the day that give Cranford its quiet evening therefore tend to give Longford its louder one, and the reverse. The same page of the timetable answers both questions; it simply answers them differently depending on which end of the road you sleep at.
Choosing the night, or choosing the room
If your date is fixed by a flight, you cannot choose the week, but you can still choose the hotel and the side of the building, which does more than most people expect. If the date is yours to pick, a night off or a birthday rather than a departure, look up the alternation for the weeks you are weighing and take the one where the afternoon half favours the end of the road you like. It takes five minutes and it is the only piece of airport planning that can sensibly be done a month ahead.
For an overnight before an early flight, ten hours at £1,800 worked back from your departure, the alternation matters less than people assume. The runways go quiet late in the evening, when scheduled flying winds down for the night, and wake again before six with the first arrivals of the morning. So the hours that decide whether you sleep are governed by the night rules rather than by the three o'clock swap. The swap shapes the dinner and the walk; the night shapes everything after it.
Who knows the sound of the row
Angelika reads flight trackers for pleasure and can name an aircraft by the noise it makes going over, which turns the afternoon swap from a nuisance into a subject. She likes an early drink with the fence in view and will tell you, without looking anything up, which runway is landing tonight. Roxi works the Cranford end, where guests tend to stay two or three nights and learn the rhythm of the approach whether they meant to or not.
Nancy is one of the four women on the blondes tag, and the other three work Hayes, far enough north that the switch barely reaches them. Send Hester the hotel and the date and she will look up which runway lands that afternoon before she suggests anybody. Her fee reaches the companion by hand when she arrives, and each length and its figure sit on the rates page. The whole rota is in the hall, and if the night has nothing to do with a flight at all, booking a room out here for its own sake is a different and rather pleasant exercise.
Filed under: most of the names in this piece also sit under raven haired in the by tag.