Bristol Airport - what a stupid location!

[mullac30]

I use Bristol quite a bit - and it's one of Britain's less annoying large airports - and I have to say that I find the bus and taxi arrangements far more friendly and way less perverse than what we have to put up with in Scotland.

- Edinburgh - a busy railway line right at the end of the runway and at the location of the old terminal, rip off tram costs to link from the Gateway station or anywhere else.

- Glasgow - a busy railway line right at the end of the runway but no thought as to how it might be linked. Endless fruitless discussions about a dedicated link.

- Aberdeen - a busy railway line at the wrong side of the runway and at the location of the old terminal. No means of reaching one from the other. Pie in the sky proposals for a dedicated link.

- Inverness - a busy railway line nearby and at least some future plans to connect the two, but a relatively small and little used airport.

- Only Prestwick, Scotland's grottiest and otherwise most useless significant airport, has a railway station. But nobody wants to go there.

So Bristol has some integrity in that it has no nearby rail links to be squandered or abused, or isn't an absurd distance from the city. The buses and taxis are relatively inexpensive and in my experience without exception drivers provide excellent service.

Edinburgh has become a terrible example of what happens when a privately run airport comes into contact with publically funded transport infrastructure and a nearby railway line - it's cheaper for two people to come and go by taxi than it is by tram and train. On the basis of how UK airports are run at the moment, and the evidence found in Scotland, having Bristol closer to a railway would provide few gains I fear.

INV is small but its certainly not little used, considering all its new hub links and that its been running at well over double it's designed terminal capacity for the last 2 years, it get extremely busy in the summer.
Also, any rail link would also be used by the adjacent new town, Tornagrain

 

[GreatAuk]

I used Bristol Airport once - got a taxi on the way there as we were going very early when the airport busses aren't very frequent and getting to the station where they set off from would have been a pain too. It was only about a tenner more expensive than bus tickets for two of us. I thought nothing of the country roads we were haring down at the time as it was dark. Then had an expectedly mediocre experience at the airport, and were off for a holiday.

On the way back there had been some disruption on the busses which also involved their ticketing system for some reason, so we got a bus back to Bristol for free which was great! I was surprised in t he daylight to see the country lanes and residential streets that we were passing through though. Probably took us half an hour to get to St Mary redcliffe where we jumped off to get a local bus (rather than crawl round the centre in a loop to get to the station).

My overall impression was of a rather poorly connected airport, particularly when considering that it must get large numbers of passengers from Wales and further South West than Bristol. However as pointed out above that's not actually that unusual in the UK! At least the bus timetable looked pretty frequent.

If the will was there I'm sure it would be possible to put it on the rail network given the mainly rural land between it and the railway though.

 

[rf_ioliver]

Simple answer, close Bristol and use Cardiff instead, especially now the Bridge is free.

Much easier to build a railway to Cardiff airport too...did anything ever come of the plan to build a spur to the airport ever?

 

[CC 72100]

I've used Bristol Airport, and found it more than satisfactory. The Bristol Flyer bus was regular, efficient, took under half an hour, and priced pretty reasonably. When I used it, it was on time, and I found the whole airport experience pleasurable (which is often a difficult thing to say!)

Indeed - my record on the RailAir coach link was landing at 14:15, bus at 14:35, was on 15:05 Bristol TM - London Pad.

I do however share the view that a dedicated rail link would be ideal.

 

[Busaholic]

I have never used Bristol Airport, but I know many from where I live in west Cornwall who have, and, though it's a long way away, I've never heard of anyone who's had an issue with getting there, parking there (where appropriate) or any other aspect, which is more than can be said of the relatively near Newquay Airport, which in any case hardly offers any destinations. Putting it anywhere nearer Bristol, particularly to the north, would make it a lot more problematic for Cornwall, Devon and South Somerset residents, at least.

 

[S-Bahn]

Bristol Airport itself is now actually quite good since the remodelling of the terminal. I cleared security in a couple of mins with minimal queuing this year and the Departures lounge has been improved.

Cardiff's departures lounge has also been extended and is a lot better than it was. Security can be slow depending on the time of day, although I've always missed rush hours.

I have taken the train and bus to both airports. With Cardiff it's a 5 mins journey to the terminal from Rhoose station, but at present the train is only a hourly service on a worn out 150 or Pacer.

If it wasn't for the wildlife issues and costs (so in an alternative reality), a 2 x runway hub airport on the brownfield site at Llanwern, with a dedicated station on the mainline and new roads/junctions for the M4 and Prince of Wales Bridge would be preferable to having 2 separate airports. That way all the existing services could stop there (X-Country service to Nottingham, GWR services to London, Bristol and Penzance, TFW local services to Cheltenham) and there would probably be the additional demand to have a electric shuttle service service between Cardiff and Bristol akin to the Gatwick Express making the journey to either city in about 20 mins.

 

[neilmc]

I used to live in Manchester, not far from the airport, and often had to travel to Bedminster on the Western side of Bristol, so I experimented with flying between the two. I considered the airport bus link to be extortionately expensive and had to be factored in to the cost (Manchester didn't because the airport is within the GM boundary so can't charge rip-off bus/train/tram fares) but the crunch came when there was a broken-down city bus somewhere around Ashton and the delay caused by the poor road structure meant that I very nearly missed my plane. So it was back to the train from Temple Meads to Stockport, I found one which started at Bristol rather than some West Country holiday resort and was thus always quiet and ran on time.

 

[randyrippley]

The airfield at Weston-super-Mare would have been a better bet as a regional airfield: sandwiched between the Bristol-Taunton railway and the A38, with the M5 close by. It could have had direct express rail and motorway access. Far better than Lulsgate, and better access than Filton for out-of-towners

 

[Nevasleep]

There's also Stagecoach's Falcon coach from Plymouth, Exeter and Taunton to the airport

https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/south-west/fly-the-south-west-falcon

National Express service too, Cardiff, Newport to Bristol Airport every 2 hours-ish.