BE832 BHX-INV 30 MAY 10 (ECONOMY)

After an unexpected call last week from my cousin to tell me my uncle had passed away we made some hurried plans to get up to Inverness. After scouring the interweb for flights, I couldn't believe some of the prices they wanted to charge for a six hundred mile trek up north but I suppose that's the way they make their money with the pricing model they use.

In the end the best option in terms on convenience and price was flying from BHX with FlyBE. So on Sunday we made our way up the M40/M42 to Birmingham and arrived in the car park a little after 1.00pm. The flight was from T2 and as we walked in the place was absolutely packed and I had an incredible sinking feeling that we were going to be stood in a queue for hours.

However as we got further in we realised that the bulk of people were in fact in the Ryanair queue and the FlyBE desks had only a dozen or so people waiting. This made me feel much better. As we'd checked in on line the night before this was a simple case of dropping the bags off and then making our way upstairs to security which took about 20 minutes to get through as they only had 2 xray machines working. Well it was Sunday and there were only several hundred people trying to get through so why not save a bit of money on manpower. It's a good job we turned up early otherwise we would have struggled to make our flight.

OK so I guess we've been spoilt over the last few years with the convenience and facilities of T3 but the choices on offer for food were a bit sparse although we were only there for 40 minutes before we were called to the gate.

As we walked down the airbridge we saw the plane we were getting on and it was tiny, a Q400 Dash 8, which is by far the smallest plane I've ever been in other than a glider at Lasham.

Anyway we got on board and settled in to our seats which were small but comfortable. We were only scheduled to be in the air for 90 minutes so I didn't bother bringing any entertainment other than my iPhone and we bought some sandwiches in the terminal as it was well in to lunchtime.

We pushed back slightly early and after a short taxi we were heading down the runway for takeoff. Now I'd heard that the smaller the plane the more noticeable the movement and I have to say that seemed to be true. Take off seemed a lot faster and as we ascended the changes in direction were a lot more obvious. After a short time we leveled out and the seatbelt light went out so I made a quick dash to the loo. Well small or what, I'm about 6,1 and couldn't stand up straight but I guess that it was in scale to the size of plane.

The trolly service was underway when I came out but as we had already bought some food we declined and tucked into ours. Shortly after this the captain made an announcement that we had a 150mph headwind and would consequently be about 15-20 minutes late, which wasn't to much of an issue for us.

Anyway we were soon making our decent alongside Loch Ness and as we were coming into land the FA said it was the longest flight to Inverness from Birmingham she'd ever been on and meant the return flight would be leaving late. So I guess the tight turn around times for the short haul operators can be impacted by even small events.

The landing was quite smooth and after turning around at the end of the runway we taxied to the small but modern terminal. The engines were off and then the seatbelt signs so we collected up our belongings and got off the plane and walked into the terminal. Within minutes our bags were on the small carousel just as my cousin turned up to collect us.

So all in all a very pleasant experience albeit comparatively expensive.

Miopyk

Ah. Inverness. The low cost myth exposed.

DanAir's jewel, later merged with BA, and then palmed off to FlyBe (before BA did the decent thing (for BA) and shifted the route to Gatwick - those Heathrow slots are valuable!)

In many respects it's the perfect domestic flight - too far too comfortably do by rail (one direct train daily from Kings Cross, one sleeper from Euston and the rest require at least one change) and a handful of easyJet and FlyBE flights a day.

You can fly more cheaply now than in BA days - if you book far enough in advance. The saving is about £10 on return tickets - more so on one way fares, but the low cost model has not really benefited Inverness at all - as Miopyk found out.

Thanks for the trip report - a shame that it was not in better circumstances. I do hope that you got some reward points... that being the least of your concerns I am sure.

Does that mean there would be a 150mph tail wind on the way back, probably making it one of the quickest flights on that route

I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you for taking the time to post a TR.

I experienced BHX's T2 last week to fly to EDI and I thought although small it was a pleasant experience.

We also flew BE as well so we had a Q400 and I thought the seats for a small plane were very comfortable and there seem to me more legroom then you get in Y on a VS flight.

It was unfortunate that when we returned to BHX on Saturday (5/6) that their main computer in Exeter went down and the loadings and flight plans where done manually. However, we were only delayed by an hour.