Airports rated for transport links- SOU top SEN bottom

[LTNman]

Airports rated worst in survey of public transport links demand Government action | News & Advice | Travel | The Independent

More details here about how the results were calculated. http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/...-a6778126.html

No Bournemouth listed.

Airports rated: the lower the score, the better

1 Southampton 7

2 Birmingham 7.5

3 Manchester 8

4 London City 8.5

5 Heathrow 9

6 Aberdeen 9.5

7 Newcastle 10

8 Belfast City 10

9 Edinburgh 11

10 Glasgow 11

11 Leeds/Bradford 12

12 Bristol 13

13 Liverpool 14

14 Exeter 15

15 Inverness 15

16 East Midlands 17

17 Belfast International 17

18 Prestwick 17.5

19 Cardiff 18

20 Gatwick 21

21 Luton 21

22 Stansted 24

23 Southend 26

[SWBKCB]

Shouldn't the thread title be changed to "public transport links"?

And why the tube for LHR and not "Heathrow Express"?

Would be interesting to see where SEN would be if they'd chosen Southend rather than London as the destination!

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by SWBKCB

And why the tube for LHR and not "Heathrow Express"?

The linked article explains why.

[Expressflight]

The methodology used made it inevitable that any London airport not being on the tube network would score badly.

[Rivet Joint]

I was thinking surely BOH should be bottom but it wasn't even included

[MKY661]

Surprised Gatwick is very low on the list, well served by train I think.

[shamrock7seal]

BOH didn't even make the list because it was beyond awful.

[LGS6753]

Generally, I respect Simon Calder, but this is a meaningless exercise. I mean, how many of Southend's passengers originate from Central London?

Likewise, Liverpool serves the whole northwest, and Belfast the whole of Northern Ireland, not just the named city.

[ayroplain]

Surprised Gatwick is very low on the list, well served by train I think.

Only when they actually run! Gatwick deserves its low place. The line from London to Brighton is a disaster area. I pass through Victoria station weekly and almost every time I hear announcements "Gatwick Express are sorry that the xx.xx has been cancelled". Likewise, the normal trains are delayed or cancelled. If it's not a train breakdown, it's the weather, or signalling problems and, last week, a new low, several trains were cancelled due to "crew shortages".

On a few occasions the entire line was not operating for one reason or another. Twice, in getting to LGW I had to go out a share a taxi with others to ensure catching a flight. The lack of information is deplorable and you can't take a chance that the service "might resume in an hour or so".

A train service connecting to an airport needs to be reliable. From my experience the Gatwick Express is not so I rarely fly from there anymore.

[SotonFlightpath]

Connections

Southampton is almost certainly the best connected airport in the UK, being located close to the intersection of the M27/M3, and with a railway station serving probably more direct destinations than any other airport railway station in the UK. Direct trains run from SOU to Southampton, Bournemouth, Brighton, London, Reading Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Derby, Sheffield, York, Salisbury etc. Fast trains link SOU to London Waterloo at least three times per hour, and unlike Southend for example, these continue into the wee small hours, making it a very viable 'London' airport!

[Heathrow Harry]

ABZ has a lousy bus service and no Metro or rail connection - Newcastle has a good bus service and a Metro that connects to a very large part of the populated area but ABZ outranks NCL

must be the cycle path into town that does it..............

[alm1]

Originally Posted by SotonFlightpath

Fast trains link SOU to London Waterloo at least three times per hour, and unlike Southend for example, these continue into the wee small hours, making it a very viable 'London' airport!

But the train costs 40 pounds. A bit too much to make flying from SOU competitive.

[racedo]

Use the gatwick train service very frequently and find it works well.

There is a Southern service as well as Gatwick Express and pretty much have few delays.

[MKY661]

When I visited Gatwick last year we went to London and we Didn't use Gatwick Express cause it was expensive. I've also done trains from East Croydon a lot as well in the past. No delays though, all was OK.

Meanwhile although Liverpool South Parkway station is connected by bus to the Airport, Merseyrail always operate a good service

[LTNman]

The criteria includes the leading form of transport from the given airport, price of ticket, distance, travel time and frequency of the day time service.

[Expressflight]

..... and distance/travel time will always distort the London airport ratings compared to the others.

[Pain in the R's]

Except City and Heathrow were 4th and 5th but I hear what you are saying out airports further out.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by LTNman

The criteria includes the leading form of transport from the given airport, price of ticket, distance, travel time and frequency of the day time service.

No, there are only 3 parameters that determine the score: fare, journey time and average time gap between services.

[Dannyboy39]

Regarding the Brighton Mainline, its also very slow. It takes around 1 hour to get from St Pancras to Gatwick sometimes - its extremely frustrating. Because its the busiest set of track in the country, congestion is common and trains cannot get to their top speeds.

[ZFT]

That's quite good from St Pancras