Dealing with long waits in the airport

Ever got to the airport far too early and thought 'What on Earth am I doing here already?'.... Yep. So have I.

I always wonder why I do it to myself - arriving at the airport so early because I have to take into account every possible eventuality that may somehow prevent me from reaching my sunny destination. The longest time I have spent loitering around an airport is 12 hours - a record that I am certainly not proud of but proved to be necessary due to the situation I was in at the time. Basically, in this case my travel mate and I arrived at Cairns airport speculatively in the hope of boarding a flight to Sydney which proved impossible. Hence a long, drawn-out wait until the next flight a whole half-a-day later.

During this nightmare of a wait my friend and I managed to amuse ourselves for a reasonable portion of it. Whether by eating our weight in fast food or by playing seemingly inane games that took on a distorted sense of higher meaning we survived (somehow) to board our flight in reasonably jovial spirits.

From that experience, I have extrapolated the five best methods of keeping one entertained whilst waiting for a flight...

1)Strike up a conversation with someone

Whoever it is, everyone has a story. Sure, in our case we tried (and failed) to chat to the prettiest things we could find but broaden your horizons by speaking to people of different nationalities and gain some insight into their World.

2)Play a game of how many

Categories include; How many moustachioed men will walk through gate number four? and how many times will this Mother clip this young boy around the ear?

3)Check out the duty free section

There is a wealth of entertainment to be had in this treasure trove. Cologne testing can take up a good couple of hours but beware of glares from the up-tight staff. Likewise, cheap sweet treats can be had for nominal amounts of cash and what better way to spend an hour than seeing how many Ferrero Rochers can be inserted into one's mouth without swallowing.

4)Explore the hidden avenues that your airport offers

You'd be surprised to find what hidden delights await you in your airport. The holy grail is a gaming arcade. Sure, their hard to come by, but once found, a couple of solid hours will fly by. Other joyous finds include Krispy Krème doughnut stalls and free internet connections.

Ryanair pull out of Manchester

Well, Ryanair are in the news again. No sooner is it reported on this blog that they are expanding at Leeds Bradford with the possibility of 1,000 new jobs for the Leeds area, than they pull out of Manchester with a loss of, yes, you’ve guessed it, 1,000 jobs. Leeds gains, Manchester loses.

It seems as though it’s all blown up about landing charges. Manchester has refused to lower the charges it makes to airlines landing at the airport, causing Ryanair to almost pull out of Manchester completely. It is expected that 600 jobs will go directly because of this withdrawal, and a further 400 jobs will now not be created that would have come into being under a deal that Ryanair offered Manchester if it cut charges.

However Manchester Airport has defended its charges saying: "Notwithstanding all of our investment in Manchester airport, including during the current recession, we don't believe that charges as low as £3 per passenger are unreasonable. Clearly, Ryanair do and that's regrettable."

Ryanair will be closing or switching nine of its ten routes at Manchester, and this will take place from the start of October. This will mean a total of 44 weekly flights cut at Manchester, which will mean a loss of some 600,000 passengers a year.

As well as having more routes from Leeds Bradford, Ryanair will be boosting its winter schedules from Edinburgh and Prestwick, with a Ryanair spokesman saying: "We are looking to have more winter routes from Edinburgh and Prestwick than last year.

"We are looking at finalising the schedules for those two airport bases for us, and hope to have them pretty much agreed by the end of this week."

Last winter the airline had 19 routes going out of Edinburgh, and about another twenty out of Prestwick.

Ryanair to expand at a revamped Leeds Bradford Airport

Budget airline Ryanair has chosen Leeds Bradford International Airport as a new base for its flights, a move which Ryanair claim is going to create 1,000 new jobs for the area. Ryanair already has three routes from Leeds Bradford, to Alicante, Girona and Dublin, but an impressive 14 more are to be added covering Carcassonne, Faro, Ibiza, Knock, Krakow, Limoges, Malaga, Malta, Montpellier, Murcia, Nantes, Palma, Pisa and Venice. It is hoped that the new flights will be launched in March 2010, making Leeds Bradford the 34th base for Ryanair.

This announcement follows in the wake of the airport getting planning permission to redevelop its relatively small and simple terminal building, and also to develop the road access to the airport. This plan, backed by the private equity owners Bridgepoint, is hoped to provide top class amenities and boost the status of the airport as the main gateway to Yorkshire.

The project will include a new two-storey extension with new check-in and security facilities, a new departure lounge, and retail area with shops, bars and cafes. The passenger security screening zone will be extended and the domestic baggage reclaim hall will be revamped.

It has been noted that the increased number of flights will make France more accessible from Yorkshire, and this may well be of interest to those looking to buy second homes in rural France.
Ryanair’s expansion at Leeds Bradford will no doubt be interesting news to rival carrier Jet2 which has its headquarters at the airport, especially as Jet2 is already serving nine of the new routes proposed by Ryanair. Jet2 currently flies 36 routes out of Leeds Bradford.

Ryanair plans to put about £84 million of investment into the airport.

The Secret Life of the Airport, BBC 4

Anyone interested in the history of civil aviation was provided with a real treat on BBC 4 recently. The three part series The Secret Life of the Airport documents the rise of mass air travel, starting with a look at the advent of commercial air travel which was taken up enthusiastically by the relatively well off, through to the dropping of prices and the rise of mass air tourism, with 44 public airports now in use in Britain.

The series, which includes some wonderful rare archive footage, looks at how the system of airports developed in Britain, and how they have transformed people’s attitudes towards travel and made long distance travel more widely available.

The first part in the series is Preparing for Take Off which starts with the opening of Britain’s first airport terminal designed for the paying passenger at Croydon in 1920. The footage of the early days at Croydon shows a very sedate scene with well-dressed people being weighed, and there are also interesting interviews with people who worked there at that time. The first commercial flights were from Croydon to Paris, and flying saved people a lot of valuable time.

Preparing for Take Off is followed by Joining the Jet Set which looks at the early years of jet travel, and those who had the resources to use it. The last episode in the series is The Final Approach, which takes us from the relatively relaxed airports of the 1960’s to the high security procedures that we have in place today.

When this series is shown again, be sure to catch it, either on your telly, or on the BBC iPlayer. Otherwise, you can always take a look over at YouTube.

Airport Focus: London City Airport

Situated in the former East London dockland area, London City Airport is a single runway airport which enjoys the status of being the only airport that is actually within London, and is the closest private jet centre to central London. Not only that, but London City Airport is a mere two miles from the site of the 2012 Olympic Games, which will give it great importance around the time of the next Summer Olympics. The airport is but three miles from Canary Wharf, six miles from the bustling financial City of London, and passengers travelling to and from the airport can enjoy fast transfers on the Docklands Light Railway, with a journey time of just 22 minutes to Bank Tube Station in the heart of the City.

With neat credentials such as these, it’s not surprising that London City Airport experienced record growth last year, with over 2.9 million passengers travelling through the terminal.

With its proximity to the financial district, and obvious convenience for those involved in finance, the airport gets considerable support from the business community. The ease of use of the airport is made even more so with faster check-in times than any other London airport.

Next year British Airways will launch from here its first business-class only transatlantic service to New York on the Airbus A318, which will be the first ever transatlantic scheduled flight from the airport.



London City Airport has recently made available throughout the whole of the terminal area free WiFi for all its passengers, and is the first airport in the UK to offer this service.

So from former dockland area to well-located airport, London City Airport is continuing the tradition of international links to East London.