It’s true about the 787’s

Some low cost scheduled airlines have been flying to Tenerife for years and years from Luton and offer a daily service from LTN, BHX and MAN this winter! 😉

I’ve flown about 50 Ryanair sectors – most of those were within a two year period whilst I lived half an hour from STN. However, as a comparison to easyJet, well, in my opinion, there is no comparison. I much prefer easyJet. Ryanair have miffed me on 5 occassions out of those 25 (round trip) flights. Three of those instances left me heavily out of pocket and the last one was the icing on the cake and my love affair with Ryanair more or less ended – I now fly them when there is no better alternative, not just on the price either. The ‘icing on the cake’ issue was when I was in Germany last year. We flew out to Lübeck from STN for a 5 day break. Whilst we were in Germany on holiday, Lübeck airport was closed due to runway issues – not Ryanair’s fault – granted. However, as my journey had already started, I find it most unacceptable that Ryanair did not attempt any contact with me other than an email to advise me that the return journey had been changed to another airpoirt – i.e. Hamburg. We turned up at Lübeck Airport blissfully unaware of any alteration to our schedule. Why do Ryanair ask for a contact telephone number and then not bother to use it when it is most definitely needed. At a cost of EUR80.00 we had to get a taxi back to Hamburg (where we had to change trains to get to Lübeck!!!) and we made the flight with literally seconds to spare.

I persevered with Ryanair’s cheap service and low fares and hiccups and I upheld the ‘you get what you pay for’ moto, but enough became enough. Where I used to actively regularly look for Ryanair flights to go on because they were cheap, I now no longer bother. I check easyJet and travel almost as often. I do still occassionally fly Ryanair, but they are now my last resort. It’s a shame really, but I did manage to get to most of the Ryanair STN network that appealed to me.

Lodz and Warsaw are very close together. Lody alos has a huge population one of the biggest cities in Europe but I am surprised that a 737 can operate there as it only has a tiny runway.

I’ve been doing a little research into Lodz (pronounced “wootch” apparently!) and Shamrock seems to be correct as it has a population of 1 million people and is about 80 miles southwest of Warsaw. Not really close enough (in my opinion) to feasibly make it a Warsaw Airport. I’d rather use Wizz or easyJet who fly to Warsaw proper.

flybe.’s low cost fares could easily operate on the same routes as Eastern’s outrageous fares. It won’t just be the same amount of passengers now being spread over two airlines. If a low cost operator enters into a new market, it will create demand because it’s cheap and because of active marketing. Do you think all the routes that Ryanair now operate from everywhere to everwhere else were crying out for these services before Ryanair got them going? I for one have travelled on dozens of Ryanair/easyJet/flybe./Monarch Scheduled flights to places I would simply just not have gone to had the fare been out of my reach. I think most people on this forum have flown somewhere at some point, just because they can afford to do so. Of course, there will also be the cost-concious regular traveller who will also choose the cheaper alternative as a matter of course, if given a choice.

flybe. would be a very smart airline, in my opinion, to go head to head with Eastern (and other airlines) on the thicker domestic routes e.g ABZ/NCL, ABZ/NWI and ABZ/MME as well as other non-Eastern routes such as ABZ/LSI (sorry for the concentration on ABZ). There are still so many more domestic routes that flybe. can pick up. They just need the help of the airports to keep the operating costs down until the route can support itself. If their aircraft are good on fuel burn on the shorter sectors, then they could have an even more solid domestic route network. The shocking rail network in this country and shocking prices to match won’t be much of a threat neither.

I didn’t used to think much of flybe., but they have won me over now.

it is no worse then say Luton (which is actually been voted in the top five as one of the worst towns in the UK)

Having lived there for 3 years, it’s a thoroughly deserved title too! It should permanently be in the number 1 spot!

The only thing I’d fault them on is the 3-3 seating on the BAe 146. Just not wide enough for a lard-ass like me! 😀