Travel Guide

No more cheap flights

August 15th, 2006

Cancelled and delayed flights are sure to have cost airlines millions of £ and $ but I wonder what the long term effect will be on travellers in Europe? The low cost airlines with their cheap air fairs have become such a normal part of travelers lives between London and Spain, Greece and France that it will be a Hugh blow to tourism should that change.

I recon that all low cost airlines like easyjet and bmibaby are going to have to increase their prices simply to cover the extra cost of security since these latest terror threats at Heathrow last week. Budget airlines depend on things like quick turnaround time to keep their costs down and that is not going to be easy anymore. I wonder when we will start to see the impact of last weeks events?

I recon we should start looking at taking the ferry to Spain or France. Make the holiday about the total journey not just about bums on beaches. You could take a ferry from Plymouth to Santander (Plymouth also services France) or Portsmouth to Bilbao. Bilbao is a great option if you want to see Northern Spain, south western France and Portugal. It may take longer to get to your destination but it beats being blown out of the sky or held up at the airport for hours on end or having your flight cancelled all together.

My daughter just happened to be travelling on ‘the’ day of the heightened security at Heathrow and two things she observed of interest was: As busy as the airport was with queues going for miles and miles and waiting times well over 3 hours in some instances to check in and board a plane, she says that people were amazingly calm and even become more human and friendly towards one another. The other observation was that it was such a pleasure to board without hand luggage. There was no congestion in the Ilse and all the passengers found it pleasant and stress free to get on the plane and be seated in record time. I recon the airlines can learn something from this. Get rid of the whole hand luggage thing. In most cases hand luggage is not necessary at all! I am personally in favour of less stress, hand luggage free flying!!

What do you think?

by Doreen B.

Entry Filed under: Home, France, Portugal, Spain