BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!

Subject: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 12:28 PM

Just booked return flights to Prague over Christmas and the New Year - for £80 less than the cheapest fare offered by Easyjet or Ryanair!!!! (and for the Ryanair I would have had to be to Prague Airport going home before 3AM! The saving is even more as I has free travel to/from Heathrow which I can get to/from in about 45 minutes from my front door.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 07:41 AM

EasyJet know that most people want to come back one week after they set off, so the outbound leg is cheap but the homeward leg is much dearer. Not only that, they've reduced the size of the freebie cabin bag. In the past we've managed our hot summer week in Spain with two cabin bags but that can't be done any more with the reduced bag size. Paying for a bigger cabin bag each would cost almost as much as a checked-in bag. So it's a titchy cabin bag each plus a hold bag at £76 return. Jet2 let you have for free a very generous cabin bag plus a smaller one for under the seat, but their hold bags are just as expensive. We don't usually pick seats and the airlines generally seat us together, but, on our Jet2 flight coming back from Málaga last month, we got two inside seats hemmed in by a massively obese, loud woman with uncontrolled kids and a barking mad fat husband in the seats in front - he rarely sat down all the way and he routinely ignored the seat belt light. So from now on we're selecting seats, aisle seats across from each other. So that's another thirty-odd quid per trip. We heard good things about Jet2 but don't you believe it. Yes their airport staff smile a lot, etc., but when we were called to the gate at Málaga we were all kept standing outside it in the heat with nowhere to sit for 45 minutes while the staff inside the gate ignored us, laughing and joking with each other.

We've only used Ryanair once. You have to add just about everything on with them. When we landed back at Stansted (avoid like the plague) there was a massive fanfare over the plane's tannoy followed by a triumphant voice bragging about about "yet another Ryanair flight arriving on time!" Thing is, we then couldn't get off the plane for over an hour because they could find a set of steps.

As far as airlines and airports are concerned, we are mere cattle. No wonder Rishi uses private jets for journeys the rest of us use buses for...

By the way, if you don't want to lose ten years off your life, avoid Stansted and Luton at all costs. At Bristol you have to lug your bags for miles to get to the gates and they haven't heard of escalators. My sister tells me that Manchester airport is a hellhole.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 07:43 AM

Couldn't find!

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 11:27 AM

When my son and his partner flew to Texas last they flew Alaska that has only a couple of gates at Love Field in Dallas. That low number seems to come with lower prices in competition with Southwest. American and Delta airlines finally started flying out of there a few years ago (most moved to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in the 1960s and never looked back). It was a territorial and legislative dispute that spanned decades. I don't like driving to Dallas' airport, but I like seeing my son, so I do it. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 07:08 AM

Who did you book the cheaper flights with SPB?

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 04 Oct 23 - 04:36 AM

A very rude, very funny song from Fascinating Aida called Cheap Flights

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 02:04 AM

Cheap flights are killing our planet.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 02:31 AM

Thompson, you beat me to it! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 05:00 AM

Well now, allow me to spoil the argument with facts. Aviation produces about 2.5% of global carbon emissions. Shipping slightly more. Both are dwarfed by passenger road travel (15%), which is much worse that road freight, and agriculture (26%). So it is not accurate to state that "cheap flights are killing the planet." That isn't to say that we shouldn't try to reduce those emissions as we should be doing in other sectors. I've been on one or two short-haul trips by air per annum (pandemic years excepted) since we started going to Spain and Italy in 2010 and I'm not intending to stop or start feeling especially guilty any time soon. By the way, if global pet food production was a country, it would be the 60th worst emitter of greenhouse gases, worse than the majority of countries. And guess which bunch of pets is responsible for, er, the lion's (wolf's?) share of that...

And why "cheap" anyway? What was that I heard about Rishi flying from Southampton to London in a private jet? Leave my holidays alone!

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 05:33 AM

worse than

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 07:08 AM

Who did you book the cheaper flights with SPB?

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 04 Oct 23 - 04:36 AM

A very rude, very funny song from Fascinating Aida called Cheap Flights

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 11:27 AM

When my son and his partner flew to Texas last they flew Alaska that has only a couple of gates at Love Field in Dallas. That low number seems to come with lower prices in competition with Southwest. American and Delta airlines finally started flying out of there a few years ago (most moved to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in the 1960s and never looked back). It was a territorial and legislative dispute that spanned decades. I don't like driving to Dallas' airport, but I like seeing my son, so I do it. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 02:04 AM

Cheap flights are killing our planet.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 02:31 AM

Thompson, you beat me to it! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 07:41 AM

EasyJet know that most people want to come back one week after they set off, so the outbound leg is cheap but the homeward leg is much dearer. Not only that, they've reduced the size of the freebie cabin bag. In the past we've managed our hot summer week in Spain with two cabin bags but that can't be done any more with the reduced bag size. Paying for a bigger cabin bag each would cost almost as much as a checked-in bag. So it's a titchy cabin bag each plus a hold bag at £76 return. Jet2 let you have for free a very generous cabin bag plus a smaller one for under the seat, but their hold bags are just as expensive. We don't usually pick seats and the airlines generally seat us together, but, on our Jet2 flight coming back from Málaga last month, we got two inside seats hemmed in by a massively obese, loud woman with uncontrolled kids and a barking mad fat husband in the seats in front - he rarely sat down all the way and he routinely ignored the seat belt light. So from now on we're selecting seats, aisle seats across from each other. So that's another thirty-odd quid per trip. We heard good things about Jet2 but don't you believe it. Yes their airport staff smile a lot, etc., but when we were called to the gate at Málaga we were all kept standing outside it in the heat with nowhere to sit for 45 minutes while the staff inside the gate ignored us, laughing and joking with each other.

We've only used Ryanair once. You have to add just about everything on with them. When we landed back at Stansted (avoid like the plague) there was a massive fanfare over the plane's tannoy followed by a triumphant voice bragging about about "yet another Ryanair flight arriving on time!" Thing is, we then couldn't get off the plane for over an hour because they could find a set of steps.

As far as airlines and airports are concerned, we are mere cattle. No wonder Rishi uses private jets for journeys the rest of us use buses for...

By the way, if you don't want to lose ten years off your life, avoid Stansted and Luton at all costs. At Bristol you have to lug your bags for miles to get to the gates and they haven't heard of escalators. My sister tells me that Manchester airport is a hellhole.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 07:43 AM

Couldn't find!

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 05:00 AM

Well now, allow me to spoil the argument with facts. Aviation produces about 2.5% of global carbon emissions. Shipping slightly more. Both are dwarfed by passenger road travel (15%), which is much worse that road freight, and agriculture (26%). So it is not accurate to state that "cheap flights are killing the planet." That isn't to say that we shouldn't try to reduce those emissions as we should be doing in other sectors. I've been on one or two short-haul trips by air per annum (pandemic years excepted) since we started going to Spain and Italy in 2010 and I'm not intending to stop or start feeling especially guilty any time soon. By the way, if global pet food production was a country, it would be the 60th worst emitter of greenhouse gases, worse than the majority of countries. And guess which bunch of pets is responsible for, er, the lion's (wolf's?) share of that...

And why "cheap" anyway? What was that I heard about Rishi flying from Southampton to London in a private jet? Leave my holidays alone!

Subject: RE: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 05:33 AM

worse than

Subject: BS: Cheap Flights? My A**e!
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 12:28 PM

Just booked return flights to Prague over Christmas and the New Year - for £80 less than the cheapest fare offered by Easyjet or Ryanair!!!! (and for the Ryanair I would have had to be to Prague Airport going home before 3AM! The saving is even more as I has free travel to/from Heathrow which I can get to/from in about 45 minutes from my front door.