My flatmate took the train from the Northwest to Gatwick to fly to Armenia on the same day because it was overall cheaper and more convenient than the other options. Yes GC ain't serving the North West, but it's a significant distance away from London like the North East, but it just shows that people will travel from across the country to London airports like Gatwick to fly for a number of reasons
I'm not sure this makes sense. The flight may be with an airline that doesn't offer connections? A seasonal route by a low cost carrier would easily fit this box, along with a lot of other possibilities. The person's origin may be convenient for a railway station on this route and not convenient for a nearer airport. Sometimes Gatwick Airport has direct air services which no other airport in Great Britain does. There may be no appropriate connecting flight that suits the travel times. A hotel stay may be preferable to something involving driving and parking as it would remove waking up early or risking driving while tired. And a hundred other possibilities. You yourself may not make any journeys that fall into these categories of course.
Indeed. I know someone who used Norse as they were the sole airline offering a decent-price economy ticket between Great Britain and the US East Coast on the week they wanted to travel, so they had to use rail to get between Manchester and Gatwick Airport as that's where they fly from. BA from Manchester with a connection at London Heathrow was obviously an option at four times the price, so obviously a night away and a rail ticket were still cost effective.
Speaking from recent experience, I would never rely on a UK connecting flight into a long haul flight ever again. I would get the train the night before.
I live in Leeds and regularly find myself flying from Luton as the flights going where I need to be are that much cheaper. Last week three of us saved over £100 each.
Isn't Stanstead just a change at Peterborough job? Maybe the connections don't line up well, but it's hardly complex, unless the calling pattern at Peterborough is unhelpful.
The three of us took the train.
For the past few years now, I also travel from Yorkshire to London to get a flight. Its often cheaper and usually offers better connectivity. I also usually stay over due to my flight being very early. Unless your flying to popular leisure destinations In Europe, or Dubai and connecting onwards and NYC, then London offers far better connections.
Admittedly I'd guess the DART's more pleasant, but once the third hourly King's Cross to Newcastle service is introduced and all Lumo services are calling at Stevenage, I'd guess improving bus services there would suffice in the short term (whether Universal would mean much more north England to Bedford / Luton demand is already in other threads).
While it is good to see Simon Calder supporting this initiative, sadly I don't think that he is a serious journalist. This quote from his first paragraph "The train, though, is actually Grand Central – the “open access” division of Arriva, ultimately owned by German Railways." is very out of date. German railways sold Arriva to I Squared Capital back in June 2024
Oh come on. It’s a very minor error in the grand scheme of things. ‘Very out of date’ is a bit too much, as well, it’s less than a year!
Agree, if this service is approved, I'll more than likely continue to go via London as its quicker and offers better flexibility. I'm sure many others up here will also do the same.
He's a very well respected travel journalist, and a big supporter of rail - are you doubting his credibility and body of work / reputation because of this Arriva semantic thing?
I don't think this is useful beyond Birmingham (re Gatwick/Brighton at least). And MML / Thameslink means the London route is far easier - also for ECML. It's best leaning more west / north west.
I’m not a huge Reading fan - but it’s far more important than York or Newcastle in rail usage terms. Probably economically too.
I also doubt that this service will take passengers away from the current via London flow.
I used to get the XC Newcastle-Reading service through to Reading, it was very convenient as I could change to GWR services heading over to Wiltshire. Since lockdown, I've gone via London as a result of XC lowering the frequency. There is absolutely demand for the Newcastle-Reading service, unfortunately, XC just don't have the capacity to operate an hourly service at the moment.
