Event & venue transfers
Around 33.0 miles door to door, 1h when the roads are behaving. From £125, locked at booking, with no meter running and no surge applied.
A taxi from Islington to Gatwick Airport is £125 in a saloon, £160 in a 6-seat MPV and £175 in an 8-seater. It is about 33.0 miles and 1h off-peak, or 1h 30m in traffic. The fare is fixed at the moment you book and covers tolls, the driver's waiting time and your luggage.
| Vehicle | Capacity | Fixed fare |
|---|---|---|
| Saloon | up to 4 passengers, 2 large cases | from £125 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £160 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £175 |
Per vehicle, not per person. Tolls, congestion and crossing charges are already inside the price, and it does not change on the day.
Meet and greet in the North or South Terminal arrivals hall. North and South terminals are a shuttle apart, so we confirm which one you land at before the day. Your driver sends the exact standing point and the registration before they set off, so you are not circling a car park looking for a number plate.
Address: Gatwick Airport, Crawley, RH6 0NP.
Parking at Gatwick Airport is limited and the surrounding streets are metered or permit-only, so self-driving usually costs more in time than the fare saves. A drop-off and a booked return sidesteps it entirely.
Ask three Islington drivers for the best line and you get one answer. The run is the A1 south through the City, Blackfriars Bridge, then the A23 to the M23 at Junction 7, which is about 33.0 miles and 1h on a clear road.
One stretch governs the whole trip: Angel and Blackfriars Bridge in the morning peak. That is where 1h turns into 1h 30m, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
The A1 south is empty after 22:30 and the whole run tightens up.
Your driver watches the live picture and re-routes without being asked, and the fare does not move when they do.
Here is the alternative, with its real numbers. From Islington the public transport route is the short hop to St Pancras or Farringdon, then Thameslink direct, with one change, and it runs about 60 minutes station to terminal. The fare is about 20.00 pounds plus 2.90.
The car is 1h off-peak and 1h 30m at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in EC1V, N1, N5, N7, N19. On time alone the train is competitive, and if you are travelling light and alone it is a fair choice.
The timetable hides two things. The first train is 04:52 from St Pancras and the last is 23:40, which rules rail out for a large slice of what Gatwick Airport actually flies - the early bank needs you airside before the network wakes up. The second is luggage: the Gatwick Express is comfortable but Victoria is a long walk with cases at both ends, and the Thameslink alternative involves stairs at several central stations.
The money crosses over at three passengers. Below that rail wins; at three the Saloon works out near enough the same each. The Saloon is a fixed fare of £125, or about £42 each between three.
Going out, there is little to get wrong. Gatwick has two terminals and they are not walkable from each other, so the airline decides your door - North for easyJet and most of the leisure carriers, South for BA and the long-haul operators. Tell us the airline and the driver goes to the right one. Set-down is in the short-stay car park at each terminal and the airport charges for it; that charge is inside your fare.
Landing back, your driver waits at the short-stay car park at your terminal, in the bays marked for pre-booked cars, about three minutes from the check-in hall. The exact bay and the registration reach you by text before you land, so there is no hunting along a rank and no call to a switchboard.
Sixty minutes of free waiting are included from touchdown, which Gatwick needs because the walk from the far end of the North Terminal pier plus border control eats most of an hour on a busy morning. You walk out to a car, which is the whole reason people book the return leg too.
We track the inbound flight number, so an early landing or a two-hour delay changes the driver's schedule and not your fare. Gatwick runs Europe's busiest single runway and arrivals stack up behind any disruption, so we track the flight rather than trusting the schedule.
Gatwick Airport front-loads its day, and Islington feels that at four in the morning. A pre-dawn transfer behaves differently from the same trip at noon.
The roads are the easy part - The A1 south is empty after 22:30 and the whole run tightens up. It is the first hundred metres that goes wrong, not the next thirty miles. Night entrances replace main doors, barriers that are open by day are down, and a driver who has not been told which side of the block you are on will circle.
Which is why the booking form asks where exactly, not just where. The side entrance, the service road, the one with the step - that goes to the driver with the job. They message rather than ring a bell at four in the morning, and the free waiting time runs from the booked hour, not from whenever they happen to arrive.
We cover the whole of Islington for this route: EC1V, N1, N5, N7, N19. Homes, hotels, offices, hospitals and station forecourts all work as pickup points, and the fare from any of them is the one you were quoted.
Some addresses have a bay; most do not. Where there is not, the driver names a spot a few steps away that a car can legally stop in and messages you with it, rather than parking on a red route and hoping. It is a small thing, and it removes most of the stress from the first five minutes of a journey to Gatwick Airport.
Look at who books it and Islington explains itself: the Angel and Old Street tech offices, the Whittington Hospital, the Emirates Stadium crowd and the Upper Street restaurant trade. Between them they set the shape of the day - an early business bank before 06:00, a family bulge mid-morning in the school holidays, and a long tail of evening departures.
If you are collected near the Emirates Stadium, or anywhere else in EC1V, N1, N5, N7, N19, it is the same fixed fare. One price across the borough, whatever the street looks like. London Borough of Islington area, one price, quoted before you commit.
What separates the three vehicles is luggage, not luxury. A Saloon at £125 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £160 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £175 takes seven and seven large cases.
Almost every mis-booking comes from counting people only. Four adults with four large cases are an MPV booking whatever the seat count says. Tell us the bag count and we size it properly rather than sending a car that cannot close.
Child seats and boosters are free but need naming in advance, with the child's age, because the seat has to be fitted before the car leaves. Skis, bikes, instruments and wheelchairs all travel if you say so at booking. Parties over seven go in several vehicles routed together, so everyone reaches the same kerb within a minute of each other.
£125 in a saloon, £160 in a 6-seat MPV and £175 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 1h off-peak. The rail alternative is Angel to Gatwick Airport plus the walk, which is competitive going out and considerably slower coming back.
Meet and greet in the North or South Terminal arrivals hall. You get the exact point and the registration by text beforehand.
Yes, and it is the leg worth booking. The driver is in position before you come out instead of you joining the queue that forms the moment it ends.
Card, bank transfer or a business account, before or after the journey. A VAT receipt is issued either way.
A 6-seat MPV is £160 and an 8-seater £175. Bigger parties travel in several vehicles routed together.
No. The fare is fixed when you book. Traffic, tolls and the hour are our problem, not a line on your bill.
Twenty-four hours is comfortable and gets you the vehicle you asked for. Same-day works when a car is free, but the early slots out of Islington go first, so a 04:00 pickup is worth locking the night before.
That is the off-peak figure for the 33.0-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 1h 30m, mostly because of Angel and Blackfriars Bridge in the morning peak. We set the airport cutoff from the worse of the two, not the better one.
Nothing happens to the fare - it was fixed when you booked. If the road goes badly wrong the driver re-routes, and on an airport run we would rather you left Islington half an hour early than argue about whose fault the A-road was. Give us the flight time and we set the pickup from it.
Card, bank transfer or cash, and nothing is added at the end. The £125 Saloon fare from Islington covers the driver, the vehicle, tolls on the route, the terminal set-down charge, and the free waiting time. No meter, no booking fee at checkout, no surge at any hour.
Fares are fixed at booking and shown per vehicle. Distances and journey times are approximate and vary with traffic and the exact pickup address. Page reviewed 14 September 2026.