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Flying
From Heathrow Is Not Necessarily Quicker – A Personal Viewpoint
By Philip
Suter
Over
the past year I travelled via London Luton and London
Heathrow on several occasions.
I
have found that the service from London Heathrow to Dublin
very reliable – no delays and arriving on time. The only occasion
there was a delay was on the evening of Thursday July 7th
2005 – Understandable.
People
generally think that the budget airlines will be more delayed
than other airlines flying from a major airport like Heathrow.
My experience this year of flying to Nice from London Heathrow
has proved otherwise.
In
March I took a very early flight to Nice. We say on the tarmac
for nearly three quarters of an hour in the early morning,
before starting the “joy ride” around Heathrow joining a large
queue of planes wanting to take off. The plane taxied past
the new Terminal 5 (How on earth they will cope with the extra
passengers in the airspace when it opens – you will probably
circle around London for an hour!) and eventually we were
airborne.
The
plane had a good tailwind, but it still arrived over three
quarters of an hour late. Why? Are there too many planes coming
in and out ? Maybe it is only on certain routes.
In
May I took the Friday evening flight from Heathrow. Cannes
film festival was well underway and the fifth Historic Monaco
Grand Prix was on that weekend. On arrival at Terminal 1 check
in, my wife and I were offered a trade in for our tickets.
They had sold more tickets than they had seats for and were
asking each passenger if they would prefer to stay in a hotel
overnight in the Heathrow area and fly on the Saturday morning.
We
were not interested. We checked in and went through the controls
to the “shopping centre” to await the notification of which
gate to proceed to. It was getting nearer and nearer to departure
time and still no notification. I went to the British Airways
help desk and was told the flight gate would be announced
any minute. It was about a minute later, about seven minutes
before it was due to take off.
Fortunately
the departure gate was one of the closer ones to the terminal
– about five minutes walk. It was several more minutes before
we actually boarded and the rest of the 100 per cent full
plane. By this time it was about twenty minutes after the
time it should have taken off. The cabin crew representative
apologised for the delay that had been down to “extra
cleaning”. We lost our take off slot and nearly an hour
later than we should have taken off, actually got airborne.
We
should have arrived in Nice just before 11.30 pm local time
with sufficient time to get to Terminal 2 to collect the rental
car. Although the plane made up time, it was still after midnight
when we landed at Terminal one. The car rental company had
a sign up saying go to their depot at Terminal two. We decided
to check to see if they were still open and they, plus some
of their competitors were still there as they officially closed
at midnight.
There
were also other people there collecting carsand I thanked
the receptionist for staying on. She told me this happened
every night. I received in the post a few days after my
return home a bill for 39 euros for out of hours attendance.
I
wrote to the airline saying that as the plane was delayed
as they had to undertake “extra cleaning” and that as they
would have been more than happy to pay for two people’s hotel
accommodation as they had overbooked the flight that a reimbursement
of the 39 euros would be welcome.
I
heard nothing for a couple of weeks, so sent a follow up.
They replied back from the original letter saying that they
could not reimburse “taxi expenses” and that they hoped
I would fly again with them soon. I replied to them, suggesting
that my letter had not even been read correctly and
yes, I was going to Nice again in July, but this time had
booked with a competitor.
I
received a very polite but brief letter from the Customer
Relations person saying that they certainly could not compensate
us. It would have been interesting to know what costs they
would have had to pay to accommodate us in a hotel with food
etc as they offered on that May Friday evening.
In
July we went to Nice via London, Luton. Yes the plane was
late coming in from Geneva, but as soon as it was emptied
and refuelled etc we were on our way. There was a small queue
with aircraft waiting to take off, but generally it was a
lot, lot better. Luton is getting busier, but usage over the
last year have included, Amsterdam, Dublin and Barcelona and
the delays have not been like those at London Heathrow. What
is more the on-site long term car parking is a lot cheaper
than at Heathrow.
The
plans for Heathrow are to make it even larger. Although there
is a lot of local opposition, the villages of Sipson and Harmondsworth
will probably disappear in the next few years and become the
third runway plus Terminals 6,7 plus. That airspace is going
to be exceptionally crowded and it will probably take the
same time to fly from most European destinations to the Heathrow
area as now, however it will then probably mean the plane
is stacking and circling for more than hour to actually land!
Philip
Suter is a Director of jml Property Services; http://www.jmlproperty.co.uk
a UK based company offering Insurance products on line
at http://www.jml-property-insurance.co.uk
and a holiday home advertising service http://www.jmlvillas.com
and management training within the UK. He a travel
writer and is a very experienced property consultant with
over 30 years work in the Residential letting business in
the UK and served on the National Council of ARLA. He is a
Fellow of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA)
and a Member of The association of Residential Letting Agents
(ARLA)
Article
Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Philip_Suter
©Philip
Suter jml Property Services July 2006
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See
also: Aer
Lingus Charging for baggage on code share flights
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