Home / London /Luton / Luton Airport Express, via the Luton DART vs National Express coach
LTN → London · head to head
Luton Airport Express, via the Luton DARTorNational Express coach?
The short answer
For one traveler the National Express coach is cheaper by up to £10.20. The National Express coach fare is sold "from" a price rather than at it, so this comparison holds only at the advertised prices and the real answer can change with the day you travel.
The Luton Airport Express, via the Luton DART is quicker: 32 min against 1 h 20. The National Express coach varies between 60 and 90 minutes.
Luton Airport Express, via the Luton DART: hours not recorded. National Express coach: Runs all night.
Priced against each other
Whole-party totals · adult fares
What each costs for the whole party, in GBP. The cheaper of the two is marked on every row.
Travelers
Luton Airport Express, via the Luton DART
National Express coach
Difference
1
£17.20
from £7
up to £10.20
2
£34.40
from £14
up to £20.40
3
£51.60
from £21
up to £30.60
4
£68.80
from £28
up to £40.80
5
£86
from £35
up to £51
6
£103.20
from £42
up to £61.20
7
£120.40
from £49
up to £71.40
8
£137.60
from £56
up to £81.60
Side by side
Where each one leaves you
train · East Midlands Railway and Luton DARTLuton Airport Express, via the Luton DART
From
Luton DART from the terminal to Luton Airport Parkway, four minutes, then a platform change
To
St Pancras International, non-stop, and nowhere else
Luggage
Up to three items each — two large and one small — in the vestibules and overhead racks, on the operator's rule.
Journey
32–40 min
The first departure is not stated here: the operator says the first train from Luton Airport Parkway leaves "just after 05:30" on weekdays without printing the minute. The last trains it does print: 23:25 Monday to Friday, 22:28 Saturday, 21:58 Sunday.
On Sundays there is no Express before 12:28 from the airport (12:14 from St Pancras). A Sunday-morning landing is a Thameslink or a coach.
It saves a few minutes over Thameslink, not the fare: 22 minutes non-stop against 24 to 45, for the same £12.30 on a contactless card. It only goes to St Pancras; for Farringdon, the City or London Bridge the stopping train is direct and the Express is not.
The operator's Advance ticket "from £10" must be used on the train booked; miss it and you buy again. Railcards apply; GroupSave does not — East Midlands Railway is not in the scheme.
The 32 minutes is the operator's own figure and includes the DART and the change at Parkway; the train alone is 21 to 22 minutes.
Stands R and S at the airport bus station, in front of the terminal exit
To
Victoria Coach Station on the A1 and A31; Paddington on the A2; all three via Baker Street and Marble Arch
Luggage
One large suitcase (or two medium) and one soft hand bag per person, in the hold.
Runs
All night
Journey
60–90 min
First coach from the airport is 00:10 (Victoria 01:37), last is 23:35 (Victoria 01:00), running around the clock with up to 49 a day; the airport also says every 30 minutes overnight. Nothing is timetabled to the minute for the small hours, so check the day you land.
Sixty to ninety minutes to Victoria on the operator's own estimate; its "fastest journey of just 40 minutes" is to Golders Green, at the top of the Northern line, not to the center.
Three routes, three sets of stops. The A31 is described as calling only at Baker Street, Marble Arch and Victoria, though it may also stop at Finchley Road & Frognal and St John's Wood; the A2 ends at Paddington rather than Victoria except overnight, when it serves both. The group discount does not apply to the A31.
A Standard ticket boards any similar coach within three hours either side of the one booked; Change & Go, £5 each way, widens that to twelve hours. Every ticket has a guaranteed seat.
The airport and the operator disagree about how many A1s and A2s run each day — 13 and 31 against 43 and 16 — so neither figure is repeated here.
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