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Tuesday 20 October 2015

Flights of fantasy.

I love planning to travel. As I've mentioned in previous posts, logistics are my thing and travel logistics are my idea of heaven. Maybe it's because I'm a travel agents daughter, who spent many a weekend growing up, sat with her father, learning the ropes. Or maybe I'm not right in the head. Either way, this move is like Christmas and birthdays combined.  

So far, there have been bookings for hotels and bookings for vans. But there is without a doubt, one area that drives me nuts. Booking a flight. Nowhere in this entire trip can so much difference be found in something as simple as getting from A to B. Booking a flight can turn into the proverbial 'omnishambles'.

First up, Aviation is in my blood. I love it. My job revolves around it, and if I had the money, I'd be flying right now rather than typing this. Commercial aviation is my passion, that's Airliners like the 747 and the A320. So the act of booking a flight is a pure pleasure. Or it should be. 

The whole mad trip across Europe comes to an end after 6 days of travel. I return the van to Cardiff, having covered over 2000 miles. That leaves me stranded in Wales with my new home a 1000 miles away. So I need a flight. Here's where the fun begins. 
To simplify things, I'm traveling with just hand luggage, because if it didn't get in the van to Vienna in the first place, I'm sure as hell not dragging it through the airport myself. I need just a single flight, from my nearest airport to Vienna. Simple? No! 

First up, not all airlines offer single flights. More correctly, not all airlines offer single flights in the same way. Let's start at the beginning. 

I'm in Cardiff. So naturally, my closest airport it Cardiff Airport. Travel time from the van hire place to the airport, and bare in mind this is public transport since I just gave the van back and hav no car, is 48 minutes by train. Ok it could be worse, but it's just 11 miles from the van place if I drove. Hmmmm. 
Flights from Cardiff aren't exactly in abundance and several larger carriers offer small linking flights to their hub from Cardiff, where I can transfer to a Vienna bound flight. Ideally I don't want to spend more than £100 on a one way flight.  


Ok so searching for a flight on the right date produces some weird results. 

First up and cheapest is Aer Lingus. Ireland's national airline has a link service to Dublin and a flight on from there. The cost £178. Ok it's not exactly what I want to see, but it could be worse. The cost isn't the biggest issue though. The total flight time is 17h and 15 minutes! It's just a 2h 30m flight direct. Indeed Aer Lingus has me departing Cardiff at 2100, that's twelve hours after I've dropped the van off,
Spend 13h 20m in Dublin before I get to board my flight to Vienna, at 11.30 the next day! Next indeed. 

My next option gets worse. For just £220, I can leave on KLM for Amsterdam, then change onto Baltic Airlines for Riga, before changing at Riga for Vienna. Amazingly this is a shorter day than Aer Lingus at just 12 hours travel time and I get to arrive on the same day I left. But the 6.05 departure time from Cardiff is way to early. 

My next choices are London Heathrow and London Gatwick. After the nonsense of connecting flights from Cardiff, both these airports offer direct flights to Vienna. I first Check Heathrow. It's an airport I'm really familiar with. The journey time from Cardiff to the airport is around 3 hours with a change of trains at Paddington. Not the cheapest option, but not the worst. I can expect to catch a flight mid afternoon at least. 



The cheapest flights come back, and there are many of them, with British Airways surprising me. For just £92 I can get a direct flight at just before 3 in the aftenoon. I'd be home early early evening. Still,given the cost of travelling to Heathrow, I had hoped I could do better. It makes it to the maybe pile though. 
My next option was Air France that offered me the chance to spend my evening waiting at Paris for an early morning flight the next day. Eh, no. 

On to Gatwick. Gatwick is nearly 4 hours away, so I'd arrive after lunch. It avoids London city centre however with a change at Reading. Things turn weird again however when it comes to the flight. My cheapest option is just £71.56. Cheaper than Heathrow. But it relies on my taking Ukraine Airlines. The flight, of which there are three at that price could take anywhere between 10h 30m to a staggering 21h and 30m. As Lynda would say, Fluffy Fat Nope! British Airways come to the rescue again though and for just £73, I can get a direct flight with a late afternoon departure. That's definitely hitting the maybe pile. 



Return to sender

You may notice that neither Lufthansa or Austrian have made an appearance so far. There's a good reason for that. The return flight. As I mentioned earlier, not all airlines offer one way tickets in the same way. For Aunty Lufty and Austrian, the rules are a little old fashioned. Here goes. A singe flight for my choosen dates with either airline costs a whopping £450. The cheapest I found was £394 and that had a change at Frankfurt. 



Change that to a return flight however and things look way different. 
The same flight, leaving on the same day, but with a return booked for just one week later costs just £165! This is the same aircraft you'd fly on, the same route and the same seat, but you have the option of returning. There's no other word for it than nonsense. Hell with a Return booked it's actually cheaper to fly business class at £400 than it is to fly economy on a one way ticket. 



And the winner is!

In the end, the winner was in no doubt. Easyjet. Yes, that's right, the UK's number one budget airline stole the whole show. In a perfect storm, Easyjet announced brand new direct flights to Vienna from Bristol airport, starting in a few weeks. This twice weekly flight goes on the day I need to travel. 
With a journey time of just 1h 30m from Cardiff, changing at Bristol Temple Meads station for a bus, the journey is much cheaper than heading to either of the London airports. 
It was Easyjet's fares being available as one way tickets and priced at just £63.99 it was a no brainer. The flight itself departs just before 2pm and I can be home, ready to start a new life before supper. Hell, I'm even paying for a front row seat and it's still cheaper than BA. 

That ticket is far more symbolic though. It's now a fixed point. To change that booking will cost me extra money. So the date of the move is fixed. With Eurotunnel coming through with summer bookings as well, we're all set.  The dye is cast. Woo Hoo.