Dawlish Discussion

With the announcement that wef end of October this year Flybe will be providing a 3x daily service Exeter Airport/London City Airport I wondered how much this might impact on the travelling time (compared to taking the train) and cost (compared to taking the train) for those wishing to travel to/from around here to/from London?

There is a potential for there to be a connecting train service going further south west once the Cranbrook train station is open although at the moment the South West Trains that use the Waterloo line terminate at Exeter St. Davids.

Is there any possibility that trains stopping at Cranbrook could also go further on down into south devon and thence Cornwall? At the moment anyone wishing to use Exeter Airport either has to drive there and park car,or, if travelling by train, take bus from Exeter St. Davids station.   

I amazed that anyone can justify flying to London from Exeter in this supposedly new era of 'green considerations'.

Yes Lynne, your thread flags up very well real typical situation of airports being so poorly connected (Gatwick excepted) by trains.  Even LHR still only offers direct trains for travel eastward to London. 

And so again with Exeter, Cranbrook Station is only a very half hearted solution that won't serve the airport very well.  I just cannot see that passengers who have paid a high premium to fly (rather than catch a train) will then cheerfully faf around getting a taxi or shuttle bus to Cranbrook to then wait for an infrequent train to Exeter SD arriving 5minutes after a Penzance train has departed (as most are currently scheduled to do!)  A few years ago a couple of SW trains a day used to continue west of ExeterSD but these were withdrawn, I believe to make the new hourly SWT service more viable (and probably reliable!) 

With regards to the train/plane time comparisons offered for Exeter, when Crossrail opens this will generally create a significant swing advantage to the train particularly as Crossrail very usefully serves Paddington.

The curious thing to me is why Exeter is expanding its Airport in these ways (in spite of all the excellent train services that Exeter has) while at the same time Plymouth has seen fit to 'cheerfully' close its Roborough airport?  All seems very counter-intuitive to me?

Well, I don't know about Plymouth 'cheerfully' closing its airport. I imagine the community there would love to have it back and up and running. Guess it wasn't making enough profit for the owners/plane services for it to be a viable proposition and I have read somewhere recently that the owners have said that they don't see a future for it re-opening as an airport.

http://www.suttonharbourholdings.co.uk/mediax/news/23-corporate/224-expert-studies-confirm-no-prospect-of-former-plymouth-airport-ever-re-opening

Which leaves the south west only with Newquay and Exeter airports. Which may explain why Exeter is expanding. And people will drive to it/get taxi/minibus to it.  I imagine, given Flybe's recent financial problems, that they (Flybe) see a demand and hence profit for this new service otherwise they wouldn't be offering it.

http://www.exeter-airport.co.uk/all-destinations

You are right, there were many who were very uncheerful.  Reading around though feels as though there didn't seem to be an effective campaign to save it.  And just to put a bit of a nail in the coffin no time has been wasted in making the secondary runway unusable due to the unseemly rush to profit from multi-million pound developments on the back of its demise.  Neither Newquay or Exeter Airports are the answer to serving Plymouth.  And for Cornwall, even Newquay services have been stripped to the bone.  I'll play devils advocate here and say that it just generally feels as if Exeter has been earmarked (generally) for great things (hoorah) but everywhere else doesn't matter as much.

p.s. Hmm I see from the article that it wasn't quite as simple as I thought.  As with many main airports Plymouth city has expanded to engulf it and so paid the price by throttling the options on its usage to zero.  From a customer point of view, getting 'cheap flights' from provincial airports is quite a challenge.  e.g. You don't get £15 Ryanair flights to Lisbon from Exeter but you can from Stansted! 

With Flybe's prices, Exeter to London City will only ever be business flights, either for European connections or where a 30 minute time 'saving' for Canary Wharf or Excel is important, (notwithstanding the time to get to the airport in the first place).   Have only recently discovered that Easyjet now operates from Southend Airport which has a new station barely an hour out of Liverpool Street - more and more cheap flights from London, nothing looking likely down here. 

The ever increasing 'cyclotron' of London.

So seems as though for the vast majority of people without expense accounts the SW 'regional' airport remains defacto Bristol (or Southend et al!)   Just like the 'West Country' getting electric trains, means Bristol.

Not necessarily true. Some great deals can be had for flights/holidays flying out of Exeter Airport and the departure/arrival times there are always at a civilised time of day. Unlike at Bristol, which also costs a load of petrol money to get to and sometimes the expense of an overnight stay for those ridiculously early flights. In my opinion. 

Flybe a budget airline?

I dont call £129 Exeter-Guernsey-Exeter, or £146 Exeter-Jersey-Exeter cheap, and that is without a suitcase, just a small carry on bag..

I'm not being contrary, but I've just been on the Flybe website and put in a random departure date of 1st Sept, returning a week later. Result is £79.99.

Of which £39.67 is down to fuel surcharges, airport fees and charges, and government charges and duties.  Flybe themselves would only receive £40 from you for the round trip. That's not bad, surely? 

@ MrsC

What destination was that?

Guernsey. It includes a cabin case up to 10Kgs. Plenty enough for a week. 

On that basis Ryanair must have, in effect, been paying me to fly to Lisbon for £15 each way and at only 2weeks booking ahead.  Returning there were only 60 of the 200 seats were occupied!!! (p.s. I should confess it was mid-January, but I can recommend Lisbon as an excellent destination even in January).  £80 Guernsey is very good as well though particularly for first week Sept. and still £25 less than the cheapest off peak return London-Truro by train.  All a bit crazy really.

@Mrs C - you are quite right about crazy 'red-eye' flight times from bristol.  my parents always seem to end up having to spend the night out bound plus get up at 5am as well just to catch their daft flight time at bristol to spain.  newquay used to have the occasional flight to the south of france but now only an infrequent one to germany is the only remaining international flight - hence their 200mile trek to bristol.

So I wish Exeter Airport the very best in expanding its destinations (at reasonable prices) - abroad as well please

Red-eye from Bristol !?  We're flying from Exeter next week with Flybe - and that's at 0700, which doesn't sound too bad but when you add in two hours' check-in time ...

I'd rather travel at stupid o'clock from Exeter than have to go via London.

Check in opens 2 hours earlier, it doesn't mean you have to be there 2 hours earlier. 

My limited experience with flights has been mainly 'London' Stansted where 2hours is very sensible in total to include for the fafle of seeming to have to half undress just to get through security, then wait half an hour before check-in is announced which is at just an hour max. before the flight.  Given it can then take about 15mins to then walk to the check-in, 20mins to queue and the check-in then closes 20mins or so before take off, that can in total only give you bizarrely 5min slack - or so it can feel !!!

Presumably Exeter has to be a little simpler than that for its size advantage

Particularly as many are internal.

I can absolutely assure you that you don't need 2 hours to get through Check-in and Security. :-)

And looking at their website, there are plenty of international destinations. :-)