Air Southwest

Flew with them last Monday – LBA-BRS. G-WOWA was my chariot, seat 6D! Flight was pushed back on time and arrived 10 minutes early. Great flight as conditions were perfect, little wind and no cloud, we topped out at 15000 ft. Route was via rway 32 then over Keighley, Bolton, Liverpool, Chester, England/Wales border before flying over the second Severn crossing for final approach to BRS. The older Dash 8s are still a bit noisy, but for £35 I’m not complaining. The five hour drive back was a different story!

I’ve had MANY flights with Air Southwest along the Manchester-Bristol-Plymouth route (I think probably 30-40 flights in the last 12 months on this route) They’re a great little airline, really friendly crews and the chocolate muffins they sell are lovely!!

Its a little unfair to say they’re not punctual as they are susceptible to certain weather problems, especially at Plymouth, rather than it being a result of aircraft or crew reliability. The former system of aircraft having to wait for each other at BRS was then disrupted. They have now rescheduled services to do away in most cases with this change of aircraft so the reliability has been improved.

I have had one flight with Air Southwest, LBA-BRS in June and I was impressed. Flew on G-WOWE, the flight was on time, clean and just like Joe’s experience, the crew were excellent. I would fly on them anyday!

I recently flew with them from Bristol and Manchester and back and was impressed. Cost was 44 pounds.

The crew were brilliant – professional, demonstrated a high level of compitency and very friendly! The pilots were generous with the flight info which I always appreciate and despite a very short turn-around time were willing to spend a few minutes talking to me.

The Dash-8-300’s (G-WOWE and G-WOWA) were clean and well kepted. Punctuality was spot on both legs of the journey so I would certainly recommend them!

Regards,

Joe

Flew with them a couple of years ago when they only had two aircraft and their operations were quite unreliable. Now they are up to 5 aircraft though, the reliability seems to have improved.

Otherwise they are just your bog standard regional airline really, normal Dash 8, and buy on board catering…

I have to say i felt Air Southwest were quite a good outfit and I would travel with then again. While waiting for the return flight at Plymouth I notice on the TV screen a couple of Gatwick flights were by bus to Newquay. I thing the area may suffer from changable (especially this summer !!!) also I presume the airports down there may have less navigational equipment than some.

Plymouth Airport’s interior was fine for a short wait. i think the runway is being extended there, can anyone confirm that ??

cheers
Carl

I’ve flown WOW a few times now and had to take the bus for MAN-PLH once because G-WOWB got stuck in the snow a BRS. They did get a coach to leave dead on time but ofcouse it arived in Plymouth a wee bet later that advertised!. Havent as yet been on a replacment aircaft yet but I am doing two trips next week with them and a change of machienry world be a nice surpise. I rate them very highley, some of the BA lagacy remains with this LCC which means they do look after you pretty well.

I remember I spent the weekend in sunny Hull, four weeks in a row, about 4 years ago. I would fly IOM-MAN on Friday night and catch the train to Hull.

I only got the train once in the end. The other 3 times, BA put me in a taxi because the flight was delayed! Shocking.

I managed to go out there OK, but coming back home the entire fleet went tech so they had to put us all in taxis. The only other person on the flight that had “flown” them before had had to be taxiied home from LGW before as well. Never again!

The way I see it, $h!t happens.

At least you got a taxi home. Rather than being told “make your own way home” as I’m sure a famous low cost carrier would say.

Still doesn’t make it ok, but just think about it.

I managed to go out there OK, but coming back home the entire fleet went tech so they had to put us all in taxis. The only other person on the flight that had “flown” them before had had to be taxiied home from LGW before as well. Never again!

The impression i got on MSN that night he came home, was FURIOUS! 😎

Yeah i think plan was for him to beat his parents home by 3? hours but he ended up 6 hours behind them!!

he was not amused!

The impression i got on MSN that night he came home, was FURIOUS! 😎

When forum user MarkL flew they were bused i think both ways as the aircraft was broken down. Needless to say he was not amused!

What goes wrong with an aircraft when it is struck by lightning?

I thought they were designed to withstand lightning, and that an aircraft getting struck is quite common.

They’ve been using quite a few different airlines recently, due to G-WOWA (I think). being down.