You may remember my previous report for another FR flight to Belfast in February, where we just made it by minutes.
This time I was determined not to make the same mistake, and despite a 15 minute wait for a Victoria Line train, made it to the airport an hour before hand.
I took the Stansted Express from Liverpool Street - yet another dirty train, with no thought to the image their train conveys of the company:
For a ticket that costs up to 28.00 in Standard Class, I think Stansted Express is crap.
As it happens, I paid 21.50 via Ryanair for a return on Stansted Express, but still...
Stansted Airport at 7.15am was quiet. VERY quiet. I think it's because Ryanair have a great swathe of flights that leave at between 6am and 7am, so I got through security in 55 SECONDS. Yip! Timed it. From joining the 'queue' to collecting my stuff from the X Ray machine took 55 seconds.
The flight was uneventful. And blue and yellow. Note number of empty seats. I paid 1 including taxes for my ticket. I think Ryanair are suffering.
Typically with Ryanair, they slammed down hard on the runway. They use Belfast City, the most convenient airport for Belfast.
I wanted to take a picture of the airport, but for the first time ever, was stopped by the stewardess from taking pictures.
I opted to take the train into town, and, here, like at Belfast International, they have missed a trick. The railway runs parallel to the airport and the local station, Sydenham, has signs 'For Belfast City Airport' - but to get there you have to take a courtesy coach which drops you off at the bottom of a footbridge. If you're disabled, forget it! If you are travelling back by rail, you have to use a free telephone to summon a courtesy bus. All very convoluted and not helping take traffic off the roads, imho.
A 'treat' was a view of the abandoned terminal building - this also explained why I had no recollection of the airport I had arrived at today and in February, even though I have flown to/from Belfast City before! The old terminal was actually minutes from the railway station.
You can just make out that there are letters missing from 'arrivals'.
After a few minutes, my train arrived, and I bought probably the best value ticket you can get in the whole UK - The 'Freedom of Northern Ireland' - unlimited travel on all buses, coaches and trains for 15 a day.
