Event & venue transfers
Fixed at £130 from Islington to Stansted Airport, about 35.0 miles and 1h 05m on a clear road. The price is locked when you book, not when you travel.
A taxi from Islington to Stansted Airport is £130 in a saloon, £165 in a 6-seat MPV and £185 in an 8-seater. It is about 35.0 miles and 1h 05m off-peak, or 1h 35m 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 £130 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £165 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £185 |
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 arrivals hall, or the short-stay pickup area. Stansted's drop-off charge and the airport approach fee are already inside the fixed fare. 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: London Stansted Airport, Essex, CM24 1QW.
Parking at Stansted Airport is limited and the surrounding streets are metered or permit-only, so self-driving usually costs more in time than the fare saves. Pre-booked both ways, none of that is your problem.
There is one sensible way out of Islington and the driver already knows it. The run is the A1 and A503 east to the A10, then the A406 and M11 at Junction 4, which is about 35.0 miles and 1h 05m on a clear road.
What decides your journey time is Highbury Corner and the A406 at Edmonton. That is where 1h 05m turns into 1h 35m, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
North-east across London at night is quick and the M11 does the rest.
Your driver watches the live picture and re-routes without being asked, and the fare does not move when they do.
The honest comparison, because you can look it up in a minute anyway. From Islington the public transport route is the Victoria line to Tottenham Hale, then the Stansted Express, with one change, and it runs about 50 minutes station to terminal. The fare is 20.70 pounds on the Express plus 2.90.
The car is 1h 05m off-peak and 1h 35m 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.
Two details matter more than the headline minutes. The first train is 04:56 from Tottenham Hale and the last is 00:45, which rules rail out for a large slice of what Stansted Airport actually flies - the early bank needs you airside before the network wakes up. The second is luggage: the Stansted Express has luggage racks but they fill by Tottenham Hale, and the walk from the platform up into the terminal is longer than the signage suggests with two cases in hand.
Split three ways the car matches the train, and that is before the bags you did not carry up a staircase. The Saloon is a fixed fare of £130, or about £43 each between three.
The departure leg barely needs explaining. Stansted has one terminal, so there is no wrong door - the set-down bay sits directly in front of departures and the walk to check-in is under three minutes. Set-down is charged by the airport and that charge is inside your fare, not added at the barrier.
On the return the pickup is the short-stay car park opposite the terminal, bays signed for pre-booked cars. 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 the moment the flight lands, which is the realistic figure for a full A320 clearing the hall. The difference is leaving straight away instead of joining the queue that forms the moment a full flight empties.
We track the inbound flight number, so an early landing or a two-hour delay changes the driver's schedule and not your fare. Stansted bunches its arrivals, so a plane that lands on time can still take fifty minutes to reach the concourse. We build that in rather than start a clock the second the wheels touch.
What separates the three vehicles is luggage, not luxury. A Saloon at £130 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £165 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £185 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.
The regulars on this run come from: 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. There is no inner and outer rate here. London Borough of Islington area, one price, quoted before you commit.
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.
Buildings with their own set-down are straightforward. 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 Stansted Airport.
Stansted 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 - North-east across London at night is quick and the M11 does the rest. The complications are at your end, not on the road. 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.
£130 in a saloon, £165 in a 6-seat MPV and £185 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 1h 05m off-peak. The rail alternative is Angel to Stansted Airport plus the walk, which is competitive going out and considerably slower coming back.
Meet and greet in the arrivals hall, or the short-stay pickup area. You get the exact point and the registration by text beforehand.
A 6-seat MPV is £165 and an 8-seater £185. 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.
The driver waits. We watch venue finish times rather than working to a fixed clock, so a late curtain does not leave you stranded or cost you extra.
Card, bank transfer or a business account, before or after the journey. A VAT receipt is issued either way.
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 35.0-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 1h 35m, mostly because of Highbury Corner and the A406 at Edmonton. 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 £130 Saloon fare from Islington covers the driver, the vehicle, tolls on the route, the airport 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.