Were you truly wafted here from paradise?

[AF62]

What is it with the Blackshirts of Border Force (and who picked that uniform?) they seem to be utterly incapable of reading airline schedules and actually having enough staff to operate the number of passport desks needed for incoming arrivals?

Thursday evening in the beautiful ambience that is the dank and dreary building site that is the basement of Luton airport ("London Luton" - not if you have any sense of geography it isn't) and with half a dozen flights that have all landed at the same time so the queues are stretching to infinity - and only then does the door to the tea room for the Blackshirts open and half a dozen of them put down their cups and slowly meander towards the unoccupied desks.

And then to top it off when I eventually make it through and get to the car park I find that the ANPR on the gate isn't working to recognise I have pre-paid for my stay, so I pop the ticket in the machine. £1,505 please the machine says. Umm, I don't think so.

[stevensfo]

What is it with the Blackshirts of Border Force (and who picked that uniform?) they seem to be utterly incapable of reading airline schedules and actually having enough staff to operate the number of passport desks needed for incoming arrivals?

Thursday evening in the beautiful ambience that is the dank and dreary building site that is the basement of Luton airport ("London Luton" - not if you have any sense of geography it isn't) and with half a dozen flights that have all landed at the same time so the queues are stretching to infinity - and only then does the door to the tea room for the Blackshirts open and half a dozen of them put down their cups and slowly meander towards the unoccupied desks.

And then to top it off when I eventually make it through and get to the car park I find that the ANPR on the gate isn't working to recognise I have pre-paid for my stay, so I pop the ticket in the machine. £1,505 please the machine says. Umm, I don't think so.

Yep! I think you'll find that Luton airport has been talked about rather a lot on these boards. I believe it's been voted the worst airport in the UK. Both the security area and the arrival hall are out of a spy thriller, and resemble a 3rd world dictatorship. I'm now planning to use Stansted more, since I really am developing a distinct allergy to Luton. From Stansted I can get a train to my destination and the last time I tried it, taking the train was really quite pleasant. Even though the ticket cost the same as the flight!

Steve

PS This 'London Luton' cr*p has always amused me. Who are they kidding?

[Lootman]

What is it with the Blackshirts of Border Force (and who picked that uniform?) they seem to be utterly incapable of reading airline schedules and actually having enough staff to operate the number of passport desks needed for incoming arrivals?

I know for a fact that they don't don't. A few months ago I arrived at Heathrow on BA280 and was the first person off the flight. Upon arriving at Border Control, the guy asked me where I had flown from. I said Los Angeles and he called out to the gaggle of guards loitering behind him that "BA280 is here".

So I guess they are not informed.

I think you'll find that Luton airport has been talked about rather a lot on these boards. I believe it's been voted the worst airport in the UK.

Yes, and for 2 or 3 years in a row. I used it once in the 1980s. I vowed to never do so again, and never have.

This 'London Luton' cr*p has always amused me. Who are they kidding?

The same people kidded by London Southend airport and London Oxford airport, presumably.

[vrdiver]

Some years ago I was involved in a bid to implement an optimization application for a major international airport. The airport management agreed we could have the data on passenger numbers by flight, average times to get from touchdown (by runway) to gate, and then to baggage, customs etc. We also had the departure schedule data and average processing times per passenger through security, time to gate, time to board etc etc. (useful, because departure and arrival tasks used many of the same staff).

It was an interesting model (LP) to solve for various outcomes, from minimising staff, to minimise passenger wait-times, getting baggage handler capacities matched to demand, moving staff from task to task (as per their skill sets) or managing peak restaurant flows etc. The model could be updated with actual departure and landing time data (and actual passenger numbers etc), but it never got implemented, as management decided that getting the self-loading cargo accustomed to arriving early and spending money once inside was not something to be unravelled, whilst customs staff were a different (non-project contributing) department and landed passenger waiting time wasn't important enough to spend the kind of money we needed to actually implement such a solution.

Management decided it was more effective to "manage" staff reactively, rather than take a proactive approach and position them ready for the next task. to be fair, there was always something going wrong somewhere, so they'd never drop the management overrides, but it seemed a shame that the opportunity to improve passenger traffic flow through the airport wasn't taken up.

These days, if I'm travelling via an airport I accept that I am just a unit of that self-loading cargo and try and be zen about it. Getting stressed out isn't going to change the outcome!

VRD

[Gerry557]

Maybe I was lucky, the Border Force actually came to me.

In fact they lived up to their name and boarded the boat I was helming. One of them was "under instruction" and his instructor was quite gruff and stern. I think he felt smug with the gunboat covering us.

At the end of all the checks, when they explained what they were doing etc and asked for feedback to give their trainee. I said why not start off pleasant but firm, rather than be a dick like the instructor chap!

That he was likely to get a better response from the innocent types anyway and maybe a cuppa whilst carrying out the admin and checks.

We met the crew again later that evening in Dover marina where there was more banter but better natured.

As for London airports, I find London Manchester to be quite good.

[didds]

PS This 'London Luton' cr*p has always amused me. Who are they kidding?

I see your "London Luton" and raise you "Frankfurt Hahn"

[stevensfo]

PS This 'London Luton' cr*p has always amused me. Who are they kidding?

I see your "London Luton" and raise you "Frankfurt Hahn"

I think this has been going on for a very long time. Nearly 30 years ago when I worked in Grenoble, some people used to go to Paris by plane. Grenoble airport was about 1 hour from the city, though these days with the crazy traffic, probably a lot more!

After some calculations, I realised that these people were nuts! For much less than the flight (no budget airline in those days) I was able to take the fast TGV train straight from Grenoble station to the centre of Paris. The train took about 3 hours, which wasn't that different from the time you needed for the airport/plane etc. A nice small bar/restaurant on the train, comfy seats and panorama view.

Steve

PS I saw Lootman's post. Isn't Southend on the east coast? How can anyone call it London Southend?

PPS Apparently, there is an airport in Calais/Dunkirk. The Blackadder in me would love to rename it Calais London airport.

[Lootman]

PS This 'London Luton' cr*p has always amused me. Who are they kidding?

I see your "London Luton" and raise you "Frankfurt Hahn"

PS I saw Lootman's post. Isn't Southend on the east coast? How can anyone call it London Southend?

PPS Apparently, there is an airport in Calais/Dunkirk. The Blackadder in me would love to rename it Calais London airport.

Presumably airports do this self-describing thing as a bit of marketing. Perhaps it even works?

"London Southend Airport is an international airport situated on the outskirts of Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England, approximately 36 miles from the centre of London."

https://southendairport.com/

The site goes on to say that it is less than an hour by train from London, and that it has its own terminal railway station. The distance from London is about the same as London Gatwick airport.

[mc2fool]

Isn't Southend on the east coast? How can anyone call it London Southend?

About the same way Stansted is London Stansted I guess, indeed, it looks like Stansted is a bit further out than Southend ... and not an awful lot further out than London Gatwick....

[stevensfo]

Isn't Southend on the east coast? How can anyone call it London Southend?

About the same way Stansted is London Stansted I guess, indeed, it looks like Stansted is a bit further out than Southend ... and not an awful lot further out than London Gatwick....

Which begs the question, where do you draw the line?

London Birmingham? London Oxford? London Bristol? London Southampton? London Antarctica?


Steve

[Lootman]

Isn't Southend on the east coast? How can anyone call it London Southend?

About the same way Stansted is London Stansted I guess, indeed, it looks like Stansted is a bit further out than Southend ... and not an awful lot further out than London Gatwick....

Which begs the question, where do you draw the line?

London Birmingham? London Oxford? London Bristol? London Southampton? London Antarctica?

Oxford certainly. From its website:

"London Oxford Airport is the Thames Valley area’s primary regional and business aviation airport – the only commercial airport between London Heathrow and Birmingham. Located in the heart of one of Europe’s fastest growing and most prosperous regions, Oxford lies 40 miles to the north-west of the Greater London area, halfway to the UK’s industrial heartland of the Midlands."

https://www.oxfordairport.co.uk/

Personally I think Birmingham should build a second runway in readiness for HS2, which could whisk Londoners there in no time at all.

[marronier]

"London Newcastle " is on the horizon , but " London Edinburgh " may cause a few grumbles.

[swill453]

"Glasgow Prestwick" is a good one. Using the same logic you could say "Glasgow Edinburgh" (or "Edinburgh Glasgow").

Scott.

[servodude]

"Glasgow Prestwick" is a good one. Using the same logic you could say "Glasgow Edinburgh" (or "Edinburgh Glasgow").

Scott.

And then there's Frankfurt Hahn
Closer to both Cologne and Luxembourg than Frankfurt
- only thought about it because I flew there from Prestwick when Ryanair started up the route

[didds]

and...

Stockholm (Skavsta) and Stockholm (Västerås) are 62 miles (99km) from central Stockholm.

Paris-Vatry Disney airport isnt near either aris (93 miles) or Disney (70 miles) !

Munich’s Memmingen airport is 70 miles from central Munich

Oslo Torp is 68 miles from central Oslo,

LOL

https://www.skyscanner.net/press-releas ... skyscanner

[terminal7]

Let's not forget London's 7th International Hub - once Kent International then renamed by a client I was working for at the turn of the century London Manston. I see just back on the 'map' as a possible location for flying in Ukrainian refugees.

T7

[didds]

Let's not forget London's 7th International Hub - once Kent International then renamed by a client I was working for at the turn of the century London Manston. I see just back on the 'map' as a possible location for flying in Ukrainian refugees.

T7

isn't it a Farage Garage at the moment?

[Lootman]

and...

Stockholm (Skavsta) and Stockholm (Västerås) are 62 miles (99km) from central Stockholm.

Paris-Vatry Disney airport isnt near either aris (93 miles) or Disney (70 miles) !

Munich’s Memmingen airport is 70 miles from central Munich

Oslo Torp is 68 miles from central Oslo,

LOL

https://www.skyscanner.net/press-releas ... skyscanner

It's really not about the distance so much as the time to get there. So for example Tokyo's Narita airport was criticised when it opened for being too far from Tokyo. But being the Japanese of course they built a railway station actually in the airport with various rail links, both state and private, to Tokyo city centre. From memory it takes under an hour, which is the limit for an airport to be deemed local, in my opinion. Tokyo's Haneda airport is much more central, with a quirky monorail linking it to the city centre.

Before the Piccadilly line was extended to Heathrow, you used to have to take a bus from Victoria coach station out along crowded Cromwell Road and the A4. That could easily take an hour or more in traffic. The tube trip itself isn't that quick because of all the stops and it was only when the Heathrow Express was built that you could get there from Paddington in 15 minutes.

London City, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton airports all have a dedicated railway station, although Luton requires a shuttle bus. Figure an hour to get to any of them.
US airports are often not far away from their cities but public transportation to them is often poor and slow. Getting to JFK or Newark can be ponderous and many prefer the quick cab trip to La Guardia. LAX still doesn't have its subway going there. O'Hare has its "El" train but again it is very slow. BART to San Francisco SFO works but again, stops a whole bunch of times. And so on.

Where distance does matter is the cost, at least if you want to take a taxi.

[Hallucigenia]

PPS Apparently, there is an airport in Calais/Dunkirk. The Blackadder in me would love to rename it Calais London airport.

Don't forget London Ashford Airport - or Lydd Airport as everyone normal calls it - which is closer to France than London...

[kiloran]

Let's not forget London's 7th International Hub - once Kent International then renamed by a client I was working for at the turn of the century London Manston. I see just back on the 'map' as a possible location for flying in Ukrainian refugees.

T7

So London Manston will be renamed London Kyiv airport?

--kiloran