No, I didn’t fly my own plane (which would have been even more awesome).
I’m on a business trip in Antwerp, Belgium. Took the beat up CityJet Fokker 50 from London City Airport to here. Airport has short rwy and is literally in the middle of the city. The Fokker turns up in front of the tiny terminal, swings around so it’s ready to taxi out without any need for pushback etc. 2 guys ready to unload baggage. We walk 50 feet to terminal, pass customs in 3 seconds and then 5 feet to right is the sole baggage claim. 30 seconds later the luggage appears hand carted from the plane on a trolly. Time from arrival until I’ve passed customs, collected my bag and sitting in cab is less than 3 minutes. I’m in town at my destination in less than 15mins.
Why can’t airline travel be like this always?
I quite agree. I travel via London City every few weeks to Frankfurt. One you can be from the front door to the lounge in 15 minutes, and then later lounge to gate in 5 minutes. The other can potentially take + 30 minutes to travel from landing zone to the gate, then 10 minutes bus ride, and then upto 30 minutes walk out to the front door. Funnily enough, the Germans are the ones reputable for their effeciency. That’s far from evident at Frankfurt airport, more so if you fancy a Burger King, where the “fast” bit from Fast food is certainly not a policy anywhere in Europe. Thank the Lord for London City and its lack of pushback requirements and proper ‘actual’ efficiency. UK 1 – Germany – 0 as far as I’m concerned.
The problems with airports that are big start with the fact that it physically takes much longer to get the bags from the aircraft to the baggage hall.
There is also the fact that the people who manage the place and can make decisions are too far away from the ramp to get things moving in a dynamic way, an example of this was that one morning last year the ramp was covered in ice and the airport stopped passenger boarding via the rear steps on safety grounds ( good move ) . This slowed the boarding and resulted in a delay, on return to the airport a few hours later the ramp surface was now dry and ice free but boarding via the rear steps was still banned I was told because of the "elf & safety ". A quick email to the airport director got it sorted but it would seem that no one below his level had the nouse to see that ramp conditions had changed and the slippery surface precautions were no longer needed.
Big airports are also the home of stupid rules, a passenger can walk to the aircraft without a hi-vis jacket but a few months back we had some pathetic Numpty taking disciplinary action against staff for following the same path as the passengers without having the hi -vis jacket they were wearing fastened at the front !
All this nonsense slows the operation, to be fair to the upper management at the airport they take a common sense aproach but the way the middle & lower management interprets the rules is sometimes breathtakingly stupid…………. These are some of the reasons that big airports fail to operated efficiently.
Mannheim (EDFM) is one of those small airports with (limited) airline service.
Drive from the city to the airport in 5 minutes (use the tram if you like). Park your car (for free!) just in front of the terminal. Walk 20 metres to the check-in counter. Another 10 metres to the gate. From there another 30 metres to the aircraft. Fly to Tegel in one hour and you are more or less in the centre of Berlin.
Fly to Tegel in one hour and you are more or less in the centre of Berlin.
Fly somewhere else… forget it. Mannheim only has one scheduled flight left, last time I was there. It’s a bit unfair to compare tiny airports that just happen to have the connection you need with the big ones offering hundreds of connections.
London City is great and a miracle it still exists. Not many places have an airport like this. There were even aircraft built specifically for London City.
You are comparimg apples with oranges. Try Frankfurt and Heathrow and LCY with Paderborn.
The passenger experience in Heathrow is worse than Frankfurt.
And they managed to open a plus terminal with no glitches. On the other hand terminal 5 springs to mind.
Funnily enough, the Germans are the ones reputable for their effeciency. That’s far from evident at Frankfurt airport, more so if you fancy a Burger King, where the “fast” bit from Fast food is certainly not a policy anywhere in Europe. Thank the Lord for London City and its lack of pushback requirements and proper ‘actual’ efficiency. UK 1 – Germany – 0 as far as I’m concerned.
I’m not usually the first to jump and defend my home country 
but in all fairness, here you’re comparing apples and oranges.
London City and Frankfurt Airport simply don’t have the same mission profile. You’d have to compare Frankfurt to other hubs – Heathrow springs to mind?
I personally travel on a weekly basis from DUS on Monday morning and my alarm goes off 1:10 minutes before departure time. During that time, I get up and ready (has nothing to do with airport efficiency), get a taxi to the airport which takes 15 minutes, check in my luggage and walk through security (granted, on the fast track with frequent traveler privileges) and I USUALLY end up with enough time for a quick breakfast in the Lufthansa lounge. I don’t see much room for improvement here. If I take the train, I can sleep 20 minutes or so longer, but for most destinations, door-to-door, I end up loosing time compared to flying.
We just need to make sure the discussion doesn’t shift focus on BER… (which, incidentally, I may just have triggered with this post)
