Back to airports
02 February 2025For most of the last decade it was not unusual for a weekend to finish off in an airport but as the result of Avanti West Coast having strrikes scheduled every Sunday until June it is how this weekend ended. A flight from Heathrow to Manchester. There is the novelty and it allowed the test-run of home-airport transport that would come in use for potential up-coming overseas trips, but on the whole this is something that is border-line insanity having to rely on. And from the few people I spoke to I was not the only one taking this flight because of the train strikes.
The choice at the time
At time of booking the ability to get an advance Avanti ticket for today was suspended and using the one Sunday that was bookable as a guide every sane ticket was £76.30, which is the off-peak ticket price that walk-up passengers pay. In contrast the flight I booked as an alternative was £76.32 inclusive of checked baggage and seat reservation, although admittedly this was one of those lucky deals where the time of flight was not much of a compromise and given the circumstances the choice was to grab it while I could. Due to major-league balls-ups they have done in the past I avoided British Airways like the plague for over a decade but in this instance there was no other choice on the table.
A few hours later strikes were called off for two of the Sundays but neither of these was today and I noted that none of the ticket prices had any advance discount, and in the end today had not only strikes but also the bonus of engineering works. Strikes going ahead or called off, either way a load of dicking-around is to be expected such as prices rocketing as soon as bookings became available. As a result I never had any regrets about paying for a flight.
Rail unions have this common tactic of calling off strikes at the last moment since it means their members don't lose any pay but the damage for everyone else has already been done. This sort of disruption was instrumental in undermining building a life in London which has made me rather sympathetic to ideas like what happened to US air traffic controllers in 1981. Unlike TfL I was generally sympathetic towards Avanti staff since Avanti's bids for their routes had under-staffing baked in but this prospect of not being able to travel for such a length of time has buried any good-will I had towards them. They are all selfish bastards who do not give a toss about people who need to travel.
The airport experience
I am much used to dealing with the airports and once in Terminal 5 it was for me pretty uneventful, but things like airport security and having to pay attention to packing while not stressful don't even have to be thought about on trains. Conversely airports invariable have better facilities than train stations — it makes a change to have someone else deal with heavy luggage — and it takes a pretty rotten plane boarding experience to make it unfavourable compared to the Euston Stampede. For this particular trip there was the nostalgia factor but overall stations are generally less of a pain than airports.To the airport
I decided to try out the RailAir coach service from Watford Junction, which straight off the bat seemed both more appealing and faster than hauling luggage around Zone 1 of the underground. One thing that surprised me about the coach is the train-style tables and since I was the only other person on the train I managed to get one of them to myself — I have a generally good impression of airport coach services but this really felt like something extra special. Coach trip took 50 minutes which was faster than expected and could have been quicker if there was not the conjestion between the M40 and M4 junctions of the M25.
I am not sure how lucky or otherwise I was getting to Terminal 5 but it was half an hour between arriving at the Crossrail platform at Terminal 3 and having passed security, and I was left with the feeling that it could have easily taken double this. Later found out that this shuttle every half-hour at this time on a Sunday whereas the Piccadilly line is far more frequent. In hindsight I could have got away with taking the later 18:15 coach but it would be tempting fate with the amount of slack I would have had left — 20 minutes is my best guess assuming all other timings equal.
From the airport
Almost as soon as I bought the train ticket at Manchester airport station TransPennine cancelled the train and the one remaining one that went my direction was over an hour away, which I was disinclined to trust even if I was prepared to wait that long. This was the first impression and they blew it. In other circumstances I might be more forgiving but as far as I am concerned they are are bad as Avanti and won't give them another chance.
I had never used the trams in Manchester before and while the Navy Line from the airport to the city centre took an hour it was pretty good in every other respect. Easy enough to use by tapping on/off with any contactless card and it was practically door-to-door, so for this time on a Sunday the tram is in practice the only realistic option. There is the non-stop M9 route by Megabus and Scottish Citylink but they are pretty close to midnight.