Hi all,
I have to agree with the general view expressed here. I live near Birmingham and the available holidays from my local airport are indeed few and far between. Neither do I have the luxury of connecting flights to Heathrow and Gatwick so I've used National Express on 3 occasions to get to Heathrow, a service offered by JY at a very reasonable price.
However, I'm going to China in October from Gatwick which will involve an overnight stay in a hotel the night before, so that will add at least £100 to the cost of the holiday. I've also flown from Manchester before, which is an easy 90min drive for me, but that's involved an overnight stay as well.
I'm hoping that JY will offer more long haul holidays from Birmingham in the future, especially after the long awaited runway extension has been completed in 2015. Of course, that depends on airlines offering the flights in the first place as obviously JY can't offer flights that don't exist.
I'm considering Australia in 2015 but the only flights offered in the JY brochure are with Qantas from Heathrow via Dubai. I know that I can do the same route from Birmingham with Emirates as they fly to Dubai twice a day from BHX. So my question would be, why are those flights not offered as a regional alternative to the LHR option?
I believe that Emirates also do the same route from Manchester so again, why is that not shown as an option for people living further north? Maybe JY have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, in which case perhaps Julia or Will could shed some light on the issue.
Anyway, I'm sure that I could find other examples if I took the time to trawl through airline timetables, so bit more homework on the part of JY in this area (particularly for long haul destinations) would I'm sure be very much appreciated.
Kind regards
Mike