Comparing London Airports...

photo from The Anglo American

We have 5 blog entries about London:
1. Comparing London Airports... August 08
2. Grey old Janury... January 08
3. East End August 07
4. London Calling! March 07
5. London and ipods... October 06

Well, we've sure racked up some air miles in Europe now, particularly through the UK, where Clare & I have now frequented the departure lounges of these airports between us: Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Southampton, East Midlands, Leeds/Bradford & Edinburgh... (not sure if Belfast City & Belfast International count too!) So Clare happened to be writing an email to a colleague (and some of our friends) about London Airports, with a little comparison guide. Here it is:
1) Heathrow (24kms west of London): Coming from Australia – you’ll probably come here, probably to T3 or T4 (in fact, you’ll have no choice but to come here!) AVOID T5 (mainly British Airways flights) like the plague if you want to keep your bags. We try and do everything to avoid this one. Every time something goes wrong at Heathrow - snow/strikes/breakdowns/fog, one minor slip up and the whole thing grinds to a halt, literally. And then it takes days to recover. It is just like what you see on television. The levels of security just keep changing here. I think they are taking pictures of you now like the US does. The US does eye checks, finger prints and a series of questions that they match to previous entries. Note that if you have 2 passports they are matching your answers to your passport number not name. Joe got caught on that one. Lots of long haul international flights, at often competitive prices (if you get the right deals, http://www.airline-network.co.uk/) but UK domestic and European flights from here are generally quite expensive. The Underground (Tube) into Central London is a lot cheaper than the Heathrow Express to Paddington, but you have to carry your luggage down there, which can be a real hassle – and it takes ages into Central London.
2) Gatwick (46km south of London): This is actually our favourite London airport. This is very easy to get to via the underground/train lines from Victoria Station in Central London (around 30 mins from Gatwick to Victoria). When we go to London for a daytrip, this is where we try and fly to if possible (the 10 Euro fares!) Both Ryanair & Aer Lingus fly here from Dublin so we get a lot of choice. The pain here is not the actual security but the ‘kids’ before the security section who make you have one bag and not extra bits ie. one handbag and absolutely nothing else, not a laptop bag, shopping bag or a packet of sandwiches. Which is ridiculous since the airlines and security let you have a handbag and a laptop bag. So other than the kids in yellow shirts, there never seem to be too many queues there (when we’ve been there!), and far less of the general stress of Heathrow or Dublin.
3) Luton (48km north of London): Not really London, but the main London airport for EasyJet, a few Ryanair flights and other boozed up charter airlines like Monarch & Thomas Cook. Staffed by kids - yes really - who barely know what a non EU passport is. Security used to be a piece of cake there and for a while they were trialling a weird machine (like a cat scan) that apparently can see thru your clothes. Still, gets you thru quite fast. This is the airport that was used by the ‘Airline’ reality TV show (EasyJet), ie. lots of people who only take a package trip to Spain once a year and have no idea - they turn up without their passports, etc, etc. My husband loves them (airport TV shows) so we know them all. And his aunt lives close by (Luton) so we have used this a fair bit. Trains to Kings Cross, London Bridge (more expensive than the Gatwick trains), and various coaches to Victoria Station, etc.
4) Stansted (48km north-east of London): Quite a well organised airport out in the countryside, but again with a lot of throughput (this is the main Ryanair Airport for London). Good shopping and food options compared with all other London airports. You often have to come here for connections to other parts of Europe - like Norway, etc, and Ryanair fly to different destinations from here (than Dublin). Bit of a distance from London – they have trains to East London (which we haven’t used before), and coaches to Victoria Station, etc. We tend to get car rental from here. Gatwick is way more convenient though. Security here always wants you to take your shoes off and belts, etc. I rarely have to take my shoes off at any airport except this one.

None of these airports have dogs to do anything. Everything would move faster if they did. They also don’t do ‘residue’ tests like they have had in Oz for years now.

Now, the airlines:
http://www.ryanair.com/
The low fares might initially look attractive, and they are if you follow all the rules and keep the cost of ‘extras’ down – but coming from OZ, be aware of the following:
1) You can’t do online check-in unless you have an EU Passport, so you must choose the airport check-in option (which costs extra) if you’re Aussie.

2) If you pay for a baggage check-in, you’ll get a 15kg allowance, not 20kg, definitely not compatible with coming off Qantas or Singapore Airlines, etc.
3) They WILL charge you for every extra kilo over 15 kilos. The Ryanair check-in staff at all their airports are outsourced contractors, and they get commission on every extra that gets billed. There is absolutely no negotiation with Ryanair staff over luggage.
4) No seating allocation = the running of the bulls. If you’re at a European Airport late at night waiting for a Ryanair flight, expect a stampede as the flight lands and prepares for take-off again.
5) If you do get left high and dry by Ryanair (and honestly, it hasn’t happened to us yet), and you’re in a hurry to get home, then you’ll have to get your credit card out and start paying your way back on normal airlines. That’s the price you pay for the cheap Ryanair fares.

For all that, I will say however, that every Ryanair flight has got us there, consistently, and pretty much on time. Don't be scared off - they are damn cheap if you're hunting for a bargain.

http://www.easyjet.com/
Don’t have too much to say on them, did a return trip from London to Athens in 2005. Their reputation is certainly less cheesy than Ryanair. Their initial fares might look more than Ryanair but are worth considering, and they go to some different places. No seating allocation. From what I remember, their crews are a bit more professional than Ryanair.
http://www.flybmi.com/
Worth comparing with Aer Lingus on the Heathrow-Dublin sectors, as they don’t charge extra for baggage, etc. Seating allocation is done.

Grey old January...

flickr photo link: <Louise Bourgeois, Tate Modern>
We went for a walk down the Annagassan 'Esplanade' yesterday afternoon as the grey mottled sky was settling into black (at 5pm'ish!) 2 of our local dogs followed us down the shore, waiting for us to pick up sticks and throw them. This was after the morning mist (not quite a fog) had finally risen (by mid-afternoon)... It's a funny time of year. You gotta find things to do or the rain and greyscale might just drive you mad! Temperature wise, it's been pretty mild since the snow we had recently. Our days have hovered around 8-9c (almost t-shirt weather :), but with loads & loads of rain - soft rain, hard rain, sideways rain, etc. The other day, looking out from the 5th floor at work towards the Dublin Mountains (which had disappeared from sight), it almost seemed like a movie special effects scene, with sheets of water powered across the landscape by a large turbine fan. But there are no turbines... just wind and rain blowing in from the Atlantic, wave after wave...
This was our first weekend in Annagassan for a while now. We've had trips to the UK for the last couple of weekends (more El Cheapo Ryanair specials), to visit Leisa & Paul in the East End of London (with an afternoon at the Tate Modern), and then to visit my friend Chris from DHL Brisbane who was on holiday. Clare stayed on after that weekend to do a BRC Course in London too. We're quite used to doing the 'Gatwick' run on Ryanair now - excellent train connections to Central London, far less sticky carpets than Heathrow, and they've been pretty much on-time every time. Yes, we've really learned the positives & negatives of Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton & Stansted since we came over here, and we reckon Gatwick comes out on top (if you're heading into Central London). Back to Ryanair, their pilots are highly skilled at landing in Dublin, where you often feel the strong winds swaying the plane on final approach (after you've broken through the cloud layer). Nothing at all like Brisbane of course!
We took a trip to the shops at Newry on Saturday (Debenhams, Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer for those of you with a yearning for UK shopping!) We discovered a funky coffee shop too - they even had iced coffees. The Sterling is dropping in value (the UK papers are quite obsessed with recession on the horizon), and that makes it better and better for our Euro. We used to get about 66p for a Euro, now it's up to 75p. So shopping in the north (for a serious supermarket shop, or some clothes) is a pretty good move. They say the Euro might even hit 90p in 2008, and perhaps eventually hit parity with the pound (if the UK really keels over). Not sure what the Irish economy is doing, but they're lucky they jumped on the Euro bandwagon many years ago.

East End

(please click on either of these photos for a larger version)

flickr photo link: <London photos>

Hi all, we were back in London again for the Irish (summer) long weekend, 04-06 Aug. Raining as we left Dublin, raining as we returned to Dublin, but London was fine and got to 30c on Sunday. Nice. We stayed at Aldgate East (East London) - like a different country. It's called Bangla town - all the Bangladeshi's live there. Totally unreno'd, filth everywhere but full of buildings from the 1850's and before - having techno raves, outdoor bbq's, ferals selling their belongings at a night street market, brilliant graffiti, even found a Banksy in a back lane on a Jack the Ripper walk. Also did about 7 photographic shows as well as lunch at Wholefoods - the worlds best supermarket. Then on Monday we sped over to Notting Hill to find someone who knew what Eggs Benedict and Iced Coffee was. Checked out the local real estate - couldn't afford to rent a dog box there - would take our entire salaries and more. Could just afford a bedsit in Bangla town though. And we were almost in the middle of a West Ham vs Roma football riot outside Aldgate East Tube Station. And Clare took part in a "Down with Mugabe" rally outside the Zimbabwe Embassy. All the pics from the weekend are online.

London Calling!

Todays lesson is London in dot points, some links & a few piccies, as we're all rather time limited in this day & age...

Planes: Took a rather hairy flight with Aer Lingus from Dubs to Heathrow, after taking a sharp climb (perhaps avoiding a Pakistani Airbus), we landed in the driving rain...

Planes: Took Ryanair from Luton back to Dubs, a bit smoother than Aer Lingus, but that's what you get for flying in Europe in winter...

Trains: Mental note for next time, lots of tube lines are bound to be shut down on a weekend...

Automobiles: We like London Cabs, especially when you're hungry and you can't be bothered seeing if the tube station is open again or not...

Hotels: Stayed with Shirley & David @ Rickmansworth on the Friday night, thanks for having us...

Hotels: Stayed Saturday night @ The Holiday Inn London Kensington Forum, very nice, thanks to lastminute.com for that one...

Food: Took in the Harrods food hall - bought some duck fat (following Nigella's advice) but successfully resisted the Krispy Kremes...

Food: Sushi at YO! Sushi Harrods is expensive and not as good as Brisbane or Berlin...

Food: But we had a great lunch at "The Cock Inn" at Sarratt - I highly recommend the rhubarb crumble... :)

Highlights: Clare did 5 photo shows - the best one was the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Natural History Museum, and found at least 1 show with photos of Central Asian Meat Markets that cost over £1000...

Highlights: Joe went to Billy Elliot The Musical (excellent), as Clare hates musicals!

Highlights: Got to catch up with Alison & Barbara & Ian & some of the kids, and the dogs on Sunday afternoon...

Lowlights: Loads of stylish Italian tourists clogging up the pavements of Knightsbridge...

Lowlights: It rained a lot on Sunday, great weather for ducks, not for people...

Click on the picture to see a larger version...

Batchworth Lock, Rickmansworth

The Cock Inn at Sarratt, Rickmansworth

Who's on stage today at Billy Elliot?

The Metropolitan Line is quiet on a Sunday

Clare contemplates North London from the tube

Equus @ The Gielgud Theatre, West End

Les Miserables @ Queen's Theatre, West End

Visual art @ Piccadilly, London

Safety Curtain, Victoria Palace Theatre (Billy Elliot)

London and ipods...

London… It's 7.45pm Saturday, and here I am back at Heathrow Terminal 1. Another feat of design where they let a rat run through and maze and find cheese, then gave it a pen & paper and an architect’s degree. Either that, or someone said, “let’s build a long skinny line of gates 1km out into the middle of the airport, and make people walk all the way from the plane through poky corridors to where they collect their bags”. Take a wrong turn and you find another few hidden gates here and there. But these hidden areas do contain exceedingly good sandwich shops. The Brits are good at that.
What a great day in London. Blue skies (worthy of Brisbane), taking photos for tourists at the Eros statue, a couple of pints at lunchtime, and the Billy Elliot musical in the afternoon, which was really fantastic. My creative juices are really flowing tonight, thinking thoughts about everything going on around me. Maybe that’s because I’ve been awake for 46 hours now, give or take a snooze through some crap movies, or the in-flight map as the blip of our 747 crawled sluggishly across Kazakhstan. Let’s review those crap movies now before I talk about London again…
Click – Adam Sandler fans will like it. Nobody else will.
The Devil Wears Prada – Meryl Streep plays an evil fashion mag bitch who still manages to communicate some sort of moral values to a new recruit. Obviously American.
The Lake House – Far too confusing for an inflight movie. I kept expecting Keanu Reeves to say “whoa”. Along with Sandra Bullock, they were far better in Speed.
Poseidon – There’s something ironic about watching an ocean disaster movie while the wings on our 747 are flapping furiously while crossing some stretch of shark infested water at 40,000 ft.
So back to London... I was on the tube going back to Heathrow, and the ipods were making me chuckle. There was a line of like, 5 people with ipods and mobile phones. One guy with a big nose has an ipod and 2 mobile phones. 1 phone rings and he mumbles a drug deal in Spanish. Then the 2nd phone rings, he puts the first phone on hold. The ipod buds stay in his ears throughout. This pattern continues. The guy next to me makes his phone beep in alien tones while using the ipod. These 2 devices are unrelated as far as I know. An Arab guy with an amazing headdress gets on. The headdress flaps like a Star Wars costume, Jar-Jar Binks style. His phone rings and he also answers it. Then a Virgin Atlantic hostie gets on, adorned blazingly in red. Checks the phone, puts on the ipod, and looks poised for her flight to Hong Kong or wherever. I’m immediately reminded of the irony of this morning, when an elderly United hostie got on the tube. The poor old dear had lipstick running like Bobo The Clown. Must have been a hard flight in from Omaha. So naturally you start to compare the difference of United vs Virgin recruitment policies in your mind. Richard Branson vs The Florida Bingo League. Mmm. So all through these tube journeys, and walking the streets, you hear so many languages and see people playing in lush green parks (like the movie Notting Hill), and you sense an amazing level of racial harmony. At least it looks that way... Only one other thing, so many people on the tube have really bloodshot eyes (like the vampires in Blade). Either everyone is taking drugs or they live permanently underground riding the tube. Probably just too much fun and too many late nights. So London certainly has a very cool feeling. Now if only they could fix Heathrow Airport…
As a footnote, the gate for my Terminal 1 flight (Aer Lingus) was Gate 88, about 5 nautical miles from the check-in area. But seriously, the route to this gate area went across a busy airport road, down a couple of travelators and finally into a long area that resembled an alien space tube. But still room for a couple of bars with faded carpets and sticky tables. Please give my regards to the rat. I hope he found the cheese.