Mike's Blog

Airports in the UK have been in the news a lot recently. In particular BAA, now Spanish owned, has been criticised for having what amounts to a monopoly on airports in the south east of England. It currently owns Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. That puts “London Luton” in an interesting position as one of the two London airports not owned by BAA (I’m not counting “London Oxford” Hah!)

However having just flown in and out of there to Edinburgh, it’s clear they’re not taking advantage of their opportunity.

I know it’s owned by the local council, and in these tough times they need to make as much money as possible. I thought charging for trolleys (carts) was a bit steep. I thought introducing a £6 charge to get through security quickly was a cheek – I expect them to provide enough security scanning points that we shouldn’t need to pay so I can get through in time to catch my flight.

But there’s now a combination of irritants. Read the rest of this entry ?

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the low-cost airline model itself. Indeed I regularly fly on easyJet and Denmark’s equivalent Cimber (formerly Sterling, and before that Maersk). But RyanAir, and in particular Michael O’Leary, have taken it too far.

This post is prompted by their recent announcement that following the removal of check-in desks, so you have to check in online, print your boarding card and take any checked baggage to bag drop, they are then going to do away with the bag drop. So if you really want to take checked baggage then you’re going to have to take it through airport security and carry it to the ‘plane yourself – and pay for the privilege.

But my relationship, or lack of it, goes back much further than that.

Read the rest of this entry ?