I recently arrived from New Delhi to Birmingham, as I have been living in Coventry on and off for five years. The cost of my open-return ticket from Birmingham to India was £500, including as much food and drink as you want. It was a nine-hour direct flight on Air India open for one year.
I arrived at Birmingham Airport at 6 pm on 21 March. I went direct to Flybe and asked at the desk ‘may I have the next flight to Jersey please?’ ‘Yes’ they said, ‘that’s at 8.20 am the next morning and that will be £212 one way’. I replied that I didn’t want to buy the plane, I just wanted a single ticket!
So I had all night to wait. I first wanted to take the Travel Lodge across the road from the airport but no doubt the room charge would be around £100, so I decided to hang out at the airport until the morning as £212 was enough to pay. There is no comfortable seating or anywhere to lie down so I tried lying on the hard floor for sometime but the airport was so cold that this was not possible. At least the coffee shops were open, but the four coffees I brought through the night to try to stay awake cost over £12.
Then, of course, there’s the waiting around to find which gate you have to go through and as Julia mentioned, it’s always a very long way and they don’t tell you the gate number till half an hour before the flight leaves. Once you’re on the plane agreeing there’s no leg room, no arm room and yes, the overhead lockers are far too small for even the smallest of hand luggage.
People may say then why don’t you take the boat? Well, gone are the days when you spend a pleasant day in Weymouth with 100 B&Bs for £30 per night within two minutes of Condor Ferries. There are very few buses from Birmingham to Poole and even if you do leave early in the morning it’s very unlikely you’ll make the boat before it departs, which means you have to spend the night in expensive Poole and the Condor dock is very far from the town.
So come on Jersey, please make it easier for people to get off and get to this island.
