Some may wonder at my use of "luxury" but it has been a luxury for us to travel 50 minutes from Braye to Tours airport, take a 35 minute flight and land at Manchester with a drive of only 40 minutes ahead - and all this for a ridiculously low fare. On one occasion I did the round trip (Tours/Manchester/Tours) for 12€...
It was always too good to last and we confirmed this week that the route will not be operating this year. Having just travelled back to the north west of England via the Tours to Stansted route, I've realised what we've lost.
Landing at Stansted, collecting a hire car and then driving for 5 hours up the British Motorway system is not my idea of a good start to a visit "back home"! And the thought of the same in reverse at the end of the week just about did it for me..
So what is our alternative? The next best thing is to drive down to Limoges and fly to Liverpool. It's not the end of the world (excuse the pun) but it's a faff compared to Tours-Manchester.
Oh well! Gripe over! We're lucky we've an option at all. But for now our luxury route is up in the clouds..
And our airport of choice, just a dream at the end of the rainbow..
On a brighter note... Here's one from a half Yorkshire man to a Yorkshire man (you know who you are)...
4 comments:
That's a real shame.
We made use of the Manchester to Tours route several times last year, or either us or our visitors.
None of the other routes are anywhere near as convenient, especially when we take into account the availability of public transport to and from Manchester.
It always seemed busy so I wonder why they haven't reinstated it.
Stansted is a total nightmare to travel from. The roads around there are just hell.
I expect Tours is insisting he pay his airport fees and he's told them they can stick their airport.
Susan, I suspect there is some other reason because Ryanair still fles out of Tours to Stansted. It has possibly got something to do with the new routes Ryanair is operating from Manchester to popular holiday destinations....
This is a real shame. We don't d
Find the journey to Limoges too bad, and certainly easier than the trip to Stansted. This is partly because you can fairly accurately predict the journey to time to Limoges, but never to Stansted!
The days of the really cheap air tickets seem to be a thing of the past. We once had a weekend in Gothenburg for a fiver and regularly paid £10 for a trip to Geneva, via EasyJet. My environmental hat says that this is a good thing, but my wallet and sense of adventure says another.
It is still possible for us to get an Air France/BA flight from Birmingham to CDG and then the TGV from CDG to St Pierre des Corps. Possibly they offer the same from Manchester? Booked in advance, both can be reasonably priced and Michael O'Leary doesn't get a penny!!
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