Heathrow Express
A small operator by volume: Heathrow Express recorded 7,409 services from 6 Aug 2026 to 23 Sept 2026, and 88% of the arrivals we captured were within five minutes — much the same as the network at large.
5,303 arrivals were recorded across the window, 4,669 of them within five minutes and 13 more than half an hour late. At this volume a single badly delayed working is worth a visible fraction of a percentage point.
It runs much the same timetable whatever the day: 155 services on its busiest day, Sunday, 13 September 2026, and 146 on its quietest, Monday, 14 September 2026 — a difference of 6%.
The average delay at destination was 1.6 minutes. The worst single arrival recorded was 1h 29m behind schedule, Heathrow Airport T5 to London Paddington on Thursday, 10 September 2026.
The day-to-day spread is wide — 67 points between its best day, Sunday, 23 August 2026 at 99%, and its worst, Thursday, 10 September 2026 at 32%.
539 services were cancelled, 7.3% of everything booked — above the 2.4% the network cancelled over the same dates. The worst single day was Sunday, 13 September 2026, at 50% of that day's timetable.
Counting those cancellations as failures, the way the industry's own measure does, takes the on-time share from 88% of recorded arrivals to 80% of everything booked whose outcome is known — 8.1 points.
Heathrow Express in numbers
| Archived days covered | 49 | 6 Aug 2026 to 23 Sept 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Passenger trains recorded | 7,409 | |
| Share of the national timetable | 0.6% | of 1,203,226 over the same dates |
| Cancelled | 539 | 7.3% · network 2.4% |
| Arrival time recorded | 5,303 | 77.2% of those that ran |
| …arrived within 5 minutes | 4,669 | 88.0% |
| …arrived 5 to 30 minutes late | 621 | 11.7% |
| …arrived more than 30 minutes late | 13 | 0.2% |
| Average delay at destination | 1.6 min | |
| On time, counting cancellations | 79.9% | of the 5,842 booked services whose outcome is known · network 84% |
| Network, same dates | 87% | on time, against this operator's 88% |
Every percentage among the bands is of the 5,303 services whose arrival reached the archive, not of all 7,409, and the bands are exclusive. 1,567 ran without an arrival being recorded, and nothing is claimed about those. The row counting cancellations is those same 4,669 on-time arrivals over a denominator that also holds the 539 trains that did not run at all. Delay is judged at the destination, a stricter test than the industry's own measure and not comparable with it. The on-time share and the average delay answer different questions.
Day by day
49 archived days, 6 Aug 2026 to 23 Sept 2026, widest bar the busiest, filled to the share that arrived within five minutes. The same days across every operator.
In the daily longest-delay league
Heathrow Express appears 4 times across 49 archived days, on 2 separate dates in the ten shown. These are appearances in the daily league, not this operator's own worst delays.
| Date | Service | Late by |
|---|---|---|
| 10 Sept 2026 | Heathrow Airport T5 to London Paddington 05:12 · 1Y22 | 1h 29m |
| 9 Aug 2026 | Heathrow Airport T5 to London Paddington 23:42 · 1Y96 | 52 min |
| 9 Aug 2026 | Heathrow Airport T5 to London Paddington 23:27 · 1Y95 | 40 min |
| 9 Aug 2026 | London Paddington to Heathrow Airport T5 23:26 · 1T97 | 39 min |
Recorded live from the Darwin and TRUST feeds on each of the 49 days above,
and aggregated here. HX is this operator's ATOC code. How these figures are measured · All operators · Sources and licences