I haven't flown a budget airline in about 15 years. I swore them off after a horrific trip when the 80 miles from the arrival airport to the named destination caused serious stress, my mother was injured by young parents using pushchairs as weapons as they charged for those first-come-first serve seats, and I calculated the cost of driving to and parking at Stanstead as almost the difference between the "discount" fare and BA.
Easyjet and their ilk were false economies, not worth the extreme discomfort and hassle.
Of course, there was a big difference back then in the flight experience. My BA ticket included pretty much whatever baggage I wanted, I got seat assignments with my flight purchase, staff treated me like a treasured customer and even a short hop to Paris pampered me with a light meal and free drinks from a full bar.
Sadly, since then BA has been steadily slashing service and experience to lower themselves to the standards of their cheaper rivals. Without lowering price, of course. We kept defaulting to them because of frequent flier miles and the known comfort of Heathrow Terminal 5.
Then I had to fly to Geneva during ski season.
BA's outbound prices were laughable. A friend suggested trying Southampton Airport, given its convenience for public transport from Basingstoke. Easyjet had just introduced a route with timings that met my needs. So, fighting to keep nasty flashbacks from early experiences at bay, I gave it a try. And found the whole journey from Southampton to be so wonderful, I'm wondering where else we can fly from there to repeat it.
First, there's the transport. A quick hop to our local Basingstoke train station. Half an hour to Southampton Airport Parkway on trains that run four times an hour. The station isn't in the airport: you have to cross a small road. Here's the view from the train platform to the terminal building. I doubt it's more than 100 steps.
The terminal is tiny and easy to navigate. In the photo below, I have my back against one end, and you can clearly see the other. Dropping bags took slightly longer than at Heathrow because the check in desk is also where they sell all their extras to you. I was stuck behind jolly skiers pre-purchasing champagne before the flight. I seemed to be the only person without skiis, too. All that additional baggage checking also added time.
Even with those extra disruptions, I was down to hand baggage within 15 minutes. Off to security. Here's the entrance at 7:20 on a Thursday morning. Note there are more staff members cleaning up a spilled potted plant than people in the queue. Taking my snow boots on and off consumed more time than the entirety of the rest of my progress through security.
I feared an airport so small would be bereft of shopping opportunities. Not so. There's a small but decent duty free well stocked with alcohol, make up and chocolate. Tiny compared to Heathrow but bigger than your average American airport version. There's also a basic WH Smith. You wouldn't want to kill hours here, but there's enough to survive.
Somebody has put thought into lounge design. There's only one, with 10 gates, but seating comes in a variety of colours and configurations. Walls feature full-bleed photographs celebrating Southampton's sailing heritage. There's a small Costa booth downstairs, with a larger Costa and some kind of exec lounge in a loft up the stairs..
There's even a dedicated charging station and work bar for laptops.
Hand luggage is certainly more draconian than BA. Staff made me pack my purse into my laptop bag before getting into the waiting area ... one carry on means one. (Note to self: copious pockets are enormously useful.)
When it's time to board, you walk over the tarmac to your plane. The picture up top shows the distance from gate to plane. Everyone has seat assignments these days; none of the uncivilised scrum of memory. Inside the aircraft, the insubstantial garden chair feel of the seats, with advertising on the back of each, betrays that you're on a discount airline. But they were comfortable enough for 90 minutes, the staff was polite and efficient, and everything happened on time. The food and drink being peddled from the cart might be plain label rather than M&S, but you're still paying for it ... so there's no real difference to the travel experience.
It was all remarkably easy, fast and stress free compared to our usual airport departure. My Fitbit told the tale: home to my airplane seat was 1,700 steps, including a train journey. A Heathrow departure, even when driven to the airport by taxi, can easily chalk up 5,000 steps before buckling in. Bad on the exercise front, but otherwise a clear demonstration of improved efficiency.
If you're one of those few remaining travellers who still have access to the premium lounges, and sit in those nice, wide seats at the front of the plane, you'll probably consider Southampton far too downmarket for you. (So no girls' trip departures from here, clearly.) For me? I've finally realised that neither BA nor Heathrow deserve the supremacy I've automatically accorded them all these years. It's time to pay more attention to Southampton timetables.
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