Event & venue transfers
Around 31.5 miles door to door, 1h when the roads are behaving. From £120, locked at booking, with no meter running and no surge applied.
A taxi from St James's to Gatwick Airport is £120 in a saloon, £150 in a 6-seat MPV and £170 in an 8-seater. It is about 31.5 miles and 1h off-peak, or 1h 25m 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 £120 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £150 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £170 |
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. Pre-booked both ways, none of that is your problem.
The route from St James's is not complicated. The timing of it is. The run is Birdcage Walk and Vauxhall Bridge Road to the A23, then south to the M23 at Junction 7, which is about 31.5 miles and 1h on a clear road.
The variable is not distance, it is Parliament Square and Vauxhall Cross in both peaks. That is where 1h turns into 1h 25m, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
Victoria to the A23 takes minutes once the evening traffic has gone.
We would rather the driver took a longer road than a slower one. Neither changes what you pay.
The honest comparison, because you can look it up in a minute anyway. From St James's the public transport route is a five-minute hop to Victoria, then the Gatwick Express, with one change, and it runs about 40 minutes station to terminal. The fare is about 21.00 pounds on the Express plus 2.90.
The car is 1h off-peak and 1h 25m at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in SW1A, SW1Y. 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 04:35 from Victoria and the last is 00:32, 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.
Three is the number. Two travellers should take the train; three should not. The Saloon is a fixed fare of £120, or about £40 each between three.
Dropping off is the easy half. 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. That means the car is waiting when you walk out, not summoned once you do.
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.
Most of this route's traffic traces back to: the Pall Mall clubs, the St James's galleries and auction houses, the Whitehall departments and the Mayfair hotel trade. The result is a route that never fully quietens, which is why we cover it around the clock.
If you are collected near St James's Palace, or anywhere else in SW1A, SW1Y, it is the same fixed fare. No zone splits, no awkward-address premium. Westminster City Council area, one price, quoted before you commit.
What separates the three vehicles is luggage, not luxury. A Saloon at £120 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £150 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £170 takes seven and seven large cases.
Seats are the easy number; luggage is the one that catches people. 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.
We cover the whole of St James's for this route: SW1A, SW1Y. 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.
Where a building has a proper set-down bay, we use it. 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.
Most of what Gatwick Airport flies before 08:00 means a pickup nobody enjoys. A pre-dawn transfer behaves differently from the same trip at noon.
The roads are the easy part - Victoria to the A23 takes minutes once the evening traffic has gone. 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.
So tell us the entrance when you book. 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.
£120 in a saloon, £150 in a 6-seat MPV and £170 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 Green Park 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.
No. The fare is fixed when you book. Traffic, tolls and the hour are our problem, not a line on your bill.
Card, bank transfer or a business account, before or after the journey. A VAT receipt is issued either way.
A 6-seat MPV is £150 and an 8-seater £170. Bigger parties travel in several vehicles routed together.
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.
A day ahead is plenty for a Saloon. Book earlier for an eight-seater or anything before 05:00, because those go first out of St James's.
That is the off-peak figure for the 31.5-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 1h 25m, mostly because of Parliament Square and Vauxhall Cross in both peaks. 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 St James's 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 £120 Saloon fare from St James's 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.