h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>Between Bradford and Dublin? No doubt some of that stuff comes into it but for very short-haul flights like that, probably mostly used by commuters, I wonder if this comes into play much.<

Hmm, says someone who has yet to fully appreciate the subtle state of 'buggering about' (to use the technical term) that the respective governments and regulatory bodies of the UK and Eire can inflict on each other...

While we are on the challenges facing international carriers *because* they are international: avgas'll never be taxed like ground fuel, for the simple reason that aeroplanes fly from place to place - they'll just refuel in cheaper regimes.

All a country which wanted to be an international hub would have to do would be to reduce the amount it taxed avgas, and the world would beat a path to its airport. We'll only get tax on avgas if every single country agrees to it. Not likely, is it?

Ben

>> for very short-haul flights like that, probably mostly used by commuters,

All Monday morning and Friday evening flights in the EU are used predominantly by commuters, whether they take one hour or three. I know. I've travelled on enough of them. Distance doesn't make that much difference to flight-time, actually. The real short-hauls, like Glasgow to Birmingham, still take almost an hour. Not sure why.

I stand by my case that the Leeds/Bradford to Dublin commute is comparable to the Birmingham / Munich commute and the Heathrow / Glasgow commute and the Heathrow / Paris commute and the Gatwick / Tallin commute that my ex did in his time. I'll agree that Tel Aviv and Korea are exceptions. We were a much travelled couple for a while. He even got rid of his car and just used to hire one at the weekends from Heathrow.

B

PS - maybe the problem was that the airport at the Spanish end was a tourist airport. With the best will in the world, tourists are a complete nightmare in airports. They really don't know what to do, where to go or when they need to have done stuff by.

One of the main reasons I hate Gatwick is the tourists, and Bristol is only bearable because it's so small.

B

<> (Ben)

I didn't mention any problem with Ryanair here at a Spanish airport - I only mentioned trying to book a flight from here for a friend.


az

Only airline ever to have lost my baggage -> BA. Only airline ever to have cancelled my flight -> BA. Longest delay -> Easyjet (missed take off slot, had to wait forever to get a new one and then circled for what felt like a lifetime in order to get a slot in which to land). Worst airline I ever flew with -> Alitalia (just don't do it).

I agree about the tourists when you are a business traveller Ben - it is just irritating when they get in the way of your well-rehearsed sequence of actions to get on the plane with the minimum of fuss. Getting a silver BA card helped a lot with that as it let me use the first class check in at Heathrow, so I didn't have to wade through them all in order to drop off my bag (online check in letting me pre book the seat 24 hrs in advance is handy too).

Haven't really travelled that much with the lost cost brigade - since I stopped having to fly weekly for work I try to avoid flying altogether short haul and only infrequently do I go long haul destinations...

Well I'm sure us touristas are justly sorry for not having high-flying jobs that require us to fly at least once a week, and thus not being fully familiar with what goes on in the utterly imcomprehensible hell-holes that are modern airports.

We do our 'umble best, though, miss .

az

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Probably a load of waffle. They don't weigh the passengers do they?

No but I presume they work on the basis of an 'average weight' per passenger, plus luggage, which is weighed.

As I said, I don't know any more than they spout on the odd docusoap that one sees from time to time.

*glares at Blues*

Well just try harder!

I hate business travel - that is why I quit that job. Having to go into an airport twice a week is horrible and *anything* that makes it slower or more difficult is deeply irritating. Worse, it takes all the fun out of travelling for pleasure - hence trying to avoid it at all these days. People who made the plane late taking off by spending ages in duty free used to irritate me the most Any flights involving Italians in any capacity were awful. Camping in Dorset for me this year

>> We do our 'umble best, though, miss .

Yeah. I know. I always felt a real grouch for having a sense-of-humour failure around people who were in good moods because they were going on holiday. It was just really. Heathrow IS the 3rd pit of hell, you know.

B

>> Worse, it takes all the fun out of travelling for pleasure

Do you know what I mind the most about having been an International IT Whore for all those years? The fact that I no longer get a kick out of eating out. When eating out is just re-fuelling, you get very blasé about the whole "This is nice - now what shall I have? The fish sounds good" ritual in restaurants. And I *mind* that. It's coming back, slowly, as eating out becomes more of a treat and less of a routine.

*is there anything on this menu that is balanced enough not to be treat-only food? No? I'll just ask the waiter if they can grill me a bit of chicken and do me a salad without dressing. Where is my phrasebook again, ah there it is, under the book I've brought to read because I'm dining in a nice restaurant alone and people always look at you funny* It is taking me a while not to dread the eating-out experience too

<> (pedro)

You can't be serious. How do you think 'stand-by' works? >>az

az, I *know* how stand-by works. For me, on a staff ticket, I'd check in around two hours before a flight (for long-haul, probably less for domestic or European). If there were unfilled seats on the plane 45 minutes before the flight left, when check in closed, I'd get a seat and run like flick through security and passport control to get to the boarding lounge. Any non-staff member on standby would essentially do the same. They would get their ticket stamped at the ticket desk and stand within viewing distance of the check-in staff when check-in closes. If there's space when check-in closes, they might get on.

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There's an auction. Someone basically goes round saying 'Who'll get the next flight for £50? No, how about £100?' until somebody says yes.


<>

I think legally you might've hit the nail on the head here, but I can't remember the details. Airlines (well, BA) don't sell standby tickets these days, no doubt for precisely that reason.

<> BS

Essentially, you're right with the first part. There can always be exceptions, though.

>> There's an auction. Someone basically goes round saying 'Who'll get the next flight for £50? No, how about £100?' until somebody says yes.

Which actually works fine. I've been offered money to take the next flight. Most of the time I haven't bothered, because it was worth quids to me to get out of the airport as fast as I could, but it does work.

How airlines *actually* work, and how they are rumoured to work are two very different things.

Ben

Funnily enough this adding on of things you thing you've already bought is exactly where the governments PFI has gone wrong. NHS trusts suddenly finding they haven't bought what they thought they did and having to pay extra for it.

Or schools finding they have to pay market rates to lease the school buildings out of hours.

Or councils finding they have to pay to receive the reports that are produced.

This is life in our penny shaving society.

Thanks Girls for reminding me how much I miss NOT the Monday / Friday commuting, how I miss the 2 mile walk at Stanstead, the arguments with geriatric BA trolly dollies because you can't come into my excutive lounge even though you've got a card, the bolshie check in staff at Gatwick 'your laptop will have to go in the hold' Snoopy dance, Snoopy dance. Colleagues now know, without a doubt, I am mad, but happy.

>>>While we are on the challenges facing international carriers *because* they are international: avgas'll never be taxed like ground fuel, for the simple reason that aeroplanes fly from place to place - they'll just refuel in cheaper regimes.

>>>All a country which wanted to be an international hub would have to do would be to reduce the amount it taxed avgas, and the world would beat a path to its airport. We'll only get tax on avgas if every single country agrees to it. Not likely, is it?

That might be the case in somewhere like the Balkans, where you've half a dozen countries per square mile, but realistically, if people want to fly to England, they're unlikely to decide to fly to Paris and then hitchhike the rest of the way because it's cheaper.

And the airplanes haven't exactly got the choice of 'filling up' whenever they get to a cheap country - they'd waste the money they'd have saved just by hauling the extra fuel they'd loaded around.