Oxford finally gets it's own airline!!

It is called the “misery route”, but now Oxford and Cambridge dons who travel between the two university cities have been offered a way to avoid traffic jams and late trains: take an aircraft.

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Charter flights between Oxford and Cambridge – nicknamed “Don Air” – start this week and will cut the journey time to 20 minutes, compared with up to three hours by car or train.

Air fares will range from £100 to £150 return, compared with £70 for a standard rail return and £120 for first class, but many travellers will save overall because they will not have to pay for extra meals and overnight stays.

Scores of academics, businessmen and students travel between the cities – 65 miles apart as the crow flies, but up to 118 miles by road – but most have to endure gridlock on the M25 or a gruelling train journey with two changes in London. The flights, in four, seven and eight-seater aircraft, have been organised by managers at Oxford airport who said that they had received many inquiries and were confident that the charters would prove popular.

James Dillon-Godfrey, the business development manager, said: “The journey between Oxford and Cambridge is a nightmare. A 20-minute flight means people will be able to attend morning meetings and be back in time for lunch.”

Academics welcomed the prospect of a fast route to “the other place”. A senior Oxford don who travels regularly to Cambridge said: “I would certainly take the plane. It’s a bit more expensive than the train but would save time and a lot of stress caused by our terrible transport system.”

Aside from its usefulness to academics and business travellers, the air link would enable tourists to see both cities in a day.

At the same time, rail campaigners have called for the Varsity Line, which linked Oxford and Cambridge before being axed in the 1960s, to be reopened. This, however, would involve re-laying track and, given the number of stops, the two-hour journey would not represent a great leap forward.

Henrietta Leyser, a historian and fellow of St Peter’s College, who wants to see the rail link revived, conceded: “On special occasions, such as attending inaugural lectures in Cambridge or examining graduate students there, then the speed of air travel would be useful.”

Those travelling regularly between the two universities include computer scientists, geneticists, historians, administrators, estates officers and officials from the universities’ copyright libraries – Oxford’s Bodleian and the University Library at Cambridge.

Some students may also take advantage of the “hop” to attend balls, parties or other special occasions. Marcus Walker, the president of the Oxford Union, said that many students who grew up in Cambridge went to Oxford university, and vice versa.

“I can imagine parents of some students treating them and their friends to a flight home for a landmark birthday,” he said. “They would arrive fresh for the celebrations.”

Samuel Fanous, the head of communications and publishing at the Bodleian, said that the library staff used the cheapest form of travel, “but it would be nice to get to Cambridge so quickly and it would become even more attractive if sufficient numbers use the service and fares drop further”.

Jeremy Butterfield, a philosophy fellow at All Souls College, who lives in Cambridge but works in Oxford, said: “It would be wonderful to get there fast – especially if the flights were cheap enough.”

The flights will be run by two companies: AirMed has a Piper Seneca, with four passenger seats, and a Piper Chieftain, which carries seven passengers. Hangar 8, the other company, will operate an eight-seat turbo-prop Beech King Air 200.

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For all my aviation loving life I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen! From what I’ve heard the route has been a real success so fair and I believe if it proves successful enough we may see it become a scheduled service and more services and bigger aircraft being added!