Saintsman... credit card?

Sadly, the battle was lost decades ago; The shopkeepers took over BAA around 1985, and that's when the rot started. There were those of us who maintained that the function of an airport is to facilitate the transfer of passengers between surface transport and the aircraft door as quickly and expeditiously as we could make it. Clear pathways, as short as possible. We were ridiculed and told to join the modern world. It became a key priority to lengthen the "average dwell time" in the departure area; the target started at 1 hours, but before long was 3 hours. Managers who achieved this were rewarded. Among the many ways to do that was to start to tell passengers, via their airlines, that they should arrive much earlier than they needed to.

As for the "duty-free" con, duty-free shops simply part the terminally gullible from their money. Mark-ups are huge, while so-called comparisons with the mythical "high Street" prices are spurious and misleading. Most of the stuff is not dutiable in the first place but is still marked "duty-free". We are talking about excise duties here, which in airports means duties levied on alcohol and tobacco. And dutiable stuff is not duty-free within the EU. My heart sinks when I see foreign tourists leaving the UK actually buying the rubbish in the belief that they are getting a bargain on a designer label. Especially the Chinese; in many cases they could probably find the garment they just paid £177.50 for being made near where they live for £2.50, plus 50p extra for the label.

The argument that duty-free income reduces airport user charges is entirely false, in BAA certainly, and I suspect everywhere else. What the income does is remove any incentive to operate efficiently, so the running costs remain absurdly high, and of course the owners want to maximise what they steal from the business; you don't do that by reducing charges. The regulator in UK (CAA) is a toothless tiger, in thrall to the industry. Many of those operating costs are associated with the duty-free shopping; the space is not cheap to build and run, and it all has to be maintained. Imagine a simple, clean building; not a shop in sight apart from some cafes and a newsagent. Go through security, board 10 minutes later. Do you know what? It was once like that....OK, no security then, but security isn't the problem. It's all those b****y shops. Dream on.

To pass the time hanging about in the departure lounge because you were told to get there 2 hours too early, it is good entertainment to find outlets selling non-dutiable stuff underneath a sign saying "duty-free" and ask the managers what duties their junk is free of. One of these days I'll do that and record the answers.

Spot on!
As regular SLF through BHX we now plan to arrive at Check In at minus 1.15 - 1.30 max (we always pre-book seats - another nice little Earner) . By the time we've weaved our way through the Security lines (we no longer pay for so called Express), a quick walk along the unavoidable sparkly black path of DF, we can usually see our Gate No flagged upon the board. So we go to Gate and enjoy waiting there whilst our flight is delayed.

Nice idea but it doesnt yet have any UK airports other than LHR or ANY of the usual ex-UK holiday holiday haunts.
And Fragrances doesnt include Geogio Armani.
However for our soon to travel BHX - DBX - SYD - DBX - BHX its a fair bet there is NO advantage in the DF at either end.

It still has the ' sparkly black path of DF' (Nice one sixchannel!) but not as long as at other airport.

Oh well. Inevitable I guess. Pity there isnt an ''escape road' built in to Terminal designs but as the above demonstrates, its not about the Passengers anymore, its about wringing the Max out of the Pax before they get to destination and find they can haggle far better prices on the holiday High Street.

Still, EMA gotta be worth a punt - LS613 at sensible morning t/o time, meet & greet car parking at silly money compared to BHX normal car parking charges, flight price not significantly worse than BHX, travel time from west of the west mdlands only another 20 minutes and no Spaghetti Junction.
Oh, and no chance (I hope) that the never on time Smartlynx Jet2 Renter would be on the rotation, unlike fortnightly Sundays LS1213/4 flights.
Winner?

STN Compo?
 

It would be a brave (and Rich) Airline that took MAG on.
I think its a case of Put Up And Shut Up and the Airlines probably know that.

At Luton yesterday and it has now doubled the length of it's mandatory walk and reduced again the number of non-concession seats - and you can't see the departure boards from most of the seats.

Bristol is a bit of pain too.
Just went through Luton last week, pain in the arse. It winds round in an S, with no room for the flow of people between the store front and the coffee shops, zero seats.
Luton is to be avoided generally, worst airport in the UK, my other experiences last week:
- Getting to hire cars is a joke, but down the back streets of a trading estate
- On returning hire car, signposting is crap, so you drive into the drop-off area, and have to pay 3 quid to get out, only having made a wrong turn.
- The shuttle bus to the train station is also a joke, infrequent, packed, and it doesnt have a bus lane cmoing back in, so gets stuck in the rush traffic.
Never going to use Luton again.

No boarding card required anywhere. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/a...boarding-pass/

After many years (since 1974 or so) of travelling by air for business & pleasure, this year
I took a long cruise (78 days) to Hong Kong, met some friends, then on to Bangkok
for a rest. Then a nice flight with Norwegian to Oslo, no problems with shopping at BKK.
Then Oslo to Norwich. Oslo shopping centre was also OK.
Nowadays I like to be out of the UK for the winter, and air travel and creating my own travel
plans has become bit boring. Don't fly much to/from the UK either, takes an easy 2 or 3 days to drive
from the bottom of Spain to Hook of Holland. Then night boat. I can fill the car with wine as well, until Brexit.

Having been through Gatwick North terminal yesterday I see what you mean!

Just playing devil's advocate here:

You want cheap flights then this is the price to pay, shops.

Airport operators are increasingly hit by the airlines and CAA regulations ensuring the aeronautical revenue/profit are constrained and tightly out of their control.

Shops, car parks, all ancillary elements are fair game and make far more than your average landing fees! :cool:

And anyway, is the LGW North Terminal 'snake' really that bad, please, just walk through as quickly as possible and find a seat or your lounge. Talk about hysteria! :hmm:

T250 has a very valid point

TBH I find them incredibly tedious - BUT - if we went back to the "lounges" of the early 70's you'd go mad - there was literally nothing to do - and these days you are incarcerated for +2 hours cp maybe 30 mins back then

Plus I can remember the "chairs" air-side at Gatwick being old aircraft seats. Lady H thinks the ones at Manchester were from DC-3's............

The trend in the last 25 years has been to 'unbundle' costs and let the purchaser make the choice. Amusingly, this often leads to more being spent. Further, it does not always drive down the primary (striking) price. A good friend of mine works in the UK funeral trade. Across these 25 years, everyone has had to provide a detailed cost breakdown with a written estimate. Yet - funeral costs continue to rise well above inflation!

I have no difficulty in not shopping at airports but I do enjoy looking at the stuff to see what might interest me in the High Street / online at a proper price. Sometimes I see a promotion that brings an item down to the right price. When I went through FRA in March, I saw exactly the gift I needed for friends (original Sachertorte) and happily paid the price. They were highly delighted.

I have no objection to them having as many shops as they want, what I object to is being made to walk through the parade (as a result of some marketing psychologist saying they will get more spend that way) just to get to an overcrowded waiting area. The ironic thing is I've probably spent more in the unforced shopping area at LHR T5 than at any of the others in the UK, and been able to find a seat (But then no LoCo at T5!)

And Gatwick isn't too bad compared to Stansted's walk the length of the terminal and back sparkly road - and guess where I'm off to on Monday......

After hearing a few harrowing tales regarding a certain company and BKK airport it's been hands in pockets and eyes straight ahead from that point on.

Been to BKK many times (30-40), I know the story, but never had a problem.
Best to be vigilant though.