When I visited Scotland over Christmas, it was the first time I travelled with Easyjet. The low cost airlines opened new routes from Paris to Glasgow and Edinburgh in 2007 and I was curious to see how it compared with Ryanair, of which I've been a regular user for ten years.Photo : magpie1320
Ryanair was a revolution when it started operating to Glasgow Prestwick. First of all, it was so incredibly cheap compared to "full cost" airlines. I rarely paid more than 100 euros return per person. I even travelled free sometimes, they only charged taxes !
Then, as long as you tolerate the bus journey to Beauvais airport (in the early days you had to by the bus ticket at the bar of the James Joyce pub !), the flight is direct. How different from the incredible odysseys I experienced in the pre-Ryanair days : rushing through Brussels massive airport to catch a connection with KLM, travelling on a tiny propellor plane operated by an Air France affiliate, waiting long hours in Birmingham on a British Airways flight.
My best memory was when I wasn't allowed a seat on the Paris to London leg of my trip and I had to sit in the cockpit, between the (very friendly) pilot and copilot ! I'm usually rather fretful during take-off and landing but I really enjoyed it that day.
Anyway, judging from my last experience, I can say that it's very unlikely I'll use Ryanair again. With Easyjet :
-You take off from Charles de Gaulle airport. OK, it's terminal 3, the most inconvenient one. It looks like a warehouse and you have to take a bus to reach the aircraft. But you avoid the shuttle to Beauvais (1h40, 13 euros one way, pictured right). -There's priority access for families. Ryanair has scrapped this years ago in favour of prebooking on the Internet.
-The flight doesn't sound like a bingo hall with constant invitations to buy a lottery ticket or duty free perfumes. The staff doesn't look bored.
-You arrive at Glasgow Airport (15 minutes from the city centre).
-You can compensate your carbon emissions online at the same time as your booking. For four persons we paid around 10 euros. I'm not entirely sure how the money is spent but it made me feel very righteous all the same.
-It's the same price as Ryanair. Even if you take a taxi to CDG, you save the trip on the bus to Beauvais, so all in all it's probably more economical.
Why bother ? Besides I prefer orange to the blue-yellow Ryanair logo...
Si vous envisagez un prochain séjour à Glasgow ou Edimbourg, un conseil : prenez Easyjet. Pour le même prix que Ryanair, vous évitez le long trajet jusqu'à Beauvais, le personnel est souriant, vous arrivez à Glasgow Airport (à 15 minutes du centre-ville) au lieu de Prestwick (plus d'une heure)... Y a pas photo !
10 commentaires:
Ça fait plusieurs années que je voyage une ou deux fois par année sur Easyjet et je ne peux pas me plaindre. Par contre, selon mon expérience, on décolle une fois sur deux en retard. Il vaut mieux partir en n'étant pas pressé.
I live near Lille so I use Ryanair to fly to Prestwick from Charleroi (in Belgium). While I am yet to have a bad experience with Ryanair (touch wood) I'm all for a bit of competition ..
There are no direct flights from Bordeaux to Scotland, more's the pity. How far is it from terminal 3 to the TGV station at Roissy?
Moi aussi, je suis pour Easyjet. Pas de problèmes en décembre sauf une demi-heure de retard au décollage. Et j'ai pris une navette (Paris-Shuttle) de l'aeroport direct à mon hôtel - prix 18 euros.
Prestwick, non merci quand j'habite à 20 minutes de l'aeroport d'Edimbourg et au moins 90 minutes de Prestwick.
Blue et wdh59510 : Ryanair a l'avantage de partir de petits aéroports donc il y a rarement des retards. En partant de CDG, il y a plus de risque de patienter sur le tarmac à l'aller comme au retour.
Pour être honnête, moi non plus je n'ai jamais eu de problème avec Ryanair mais dernièrement leur politique de faire payer les enregistrements prioritaires et les bagages m'a agacée.
Lesley : la gare TGV se trouve au terminal 2. Il faut prendre le métro automatique. J'ai trouvé des infos ici :
http://www.cdgfacile.com/pages/acces_tgv_terminal_1_et_terminal_3_cdgpag.html
Mo : pour toi l'ouverture d'Easyjet sur Edimbourg-Paris est vraiment une bonne nouvelle. Peut-être que Ryanair va réagir ?
D'accord avec toi, Glasgow et CDG beaucoup plus pratique que Prestwick et Beauvais! Donc au moins sur cette ligne là, je vote Easy Jet. Mais je ne suis pas encore prête à renier Ryanair complètement! :)
Merci pour l'info. I did a bit of searching too and discovered that Jet2 does some really cheap flights from La Rochelle to Edinburgh in the summer. No good for you, but I might look into it.
Lesley : if you can avoid travelling via Paris it's even better for you.
Pepette : moi aussi j'ai encore un peu d'affection pour Ryanair pour tous ses services rendus à la cause franco-écossaise depuis des années. Mais l'aspect pratique passe avant.
I stumbled onto this blog, but having recently done the Paris-Prestwick journey (return), I have absolutely zero affection for RyanAir and will likely go out of my way (and pay more if necessary) to avoid RyanAir. I'd much rather fly EasyJet. My Beauvais experience was my most miserable airport experience ever - and I travel a fair amount. Not all of it was RyanAir's fault, but about 50% of it was their poor management/organisation.
Living near Bristol Airport, I have a wide choice of cheap flights to European destinations from two Easyjet and Ryanair, both of which use the airport as a platform. I recently had the opportunity to fly with the two airlines for a few days and decided to compare their experiences.
cheap flights to glasgow
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