BA -again

BA are certainly not my favourite airline   - NABAFWBAFNFWBACF
is one reason .   And ive managed to avoid givign BA more money for 2 years or so - FlyBe going to London City Airport and I've discovered that the Caledonian  Sleeper is a reasonable  way of travelling north

 But I need to travel again ,and Fly(May)Be don't go to London City in November, so BA it is after a 2 year hiatus .

So i try and choose a flight and I need to  be back on monday morning . Im not going to spedn hours  getting out to Heathrow and hanging around , so saturday , and London City it is.

And why does coming back on  a saturday cost twice as much as travelling south on a tuesday ?. Because they can charge that , and get away with it .

Selecting dates gives you the option of being flexible . Does it matter ? Well I think it does . Im still trying  to work out what buttons do what on flight choices and prices, but this is the situation at the moment ( I think)

heres a screenshot . If you  tick flexible dates , the price of saturday flights is a bit lower than if you say the dates are fixed.

 

Depending on which outward flight you choose, the price of the   return flight can vary. Its either £188, 194 or £195

£194 return flight

£195 return flight

It is not possible to see the  return flight and the outward flight  on the same screen - the list is so long , you have to scroll.  And when you select the outward journey, the prive for the return one changes .

And they do it with some javascript .

So they charge depending on how desperate to travel on a particular day .
'Dynamic pricing' means one price changes depending on what else you choose.
They design their website to obfuscate what they are doing .

And has BA gone up in my estimation ?

Caledonian Sleeper

You can board the train from 830 pm. I found my berth  - not too bad on first sight, as these things go. Much on par with the berth on the Kirkwall-Aberdeen overnight ferry crossing. 

I've had another trip between London and  Orkney. Ive had a bit of a falling-out with BA about their south-north flights .  NABAFWBAFNFWBACF flights  are detailed here.

So for the return trip  I thought I'd try the overnight train.  The plan was the train from Euston to Inverness and then the 0945 flight from Inverness  to Kirkwall.

First impression -  corridor was *very* narrow - good I suppose because there's more room for the sleepers.
The berth is a bit  narrower than on the ferry  - a couple of feet perhaps








And there is a lounge . With plug-in powerpoints so lots of people used it as an opportunity to charge phones etc. The 'host' ( ticket inspector on other trains ive been on ) came and asked for unchecked tickets. Only mine , in a lounge of a dozen people. I should have got my tickets checked before I got on the train - nobody told me , and it wasn't obvious in Euston. All my fellow passengers would seem to be regulars  then , who knew the ropes.

They do food as well. Pubgrub type  menu . Reasonably priced - certainly much more reasonable than East Coast Trains. I didn't try the menu but I might next time. And there is a bar. 1/2 bottles of wine seemed very popular.

I went to bed just after 10pm - reckoned that I might not get much sleep , so best start early.
I slept through to  after  midnight, when there was a lot of clanking and banging . I think this must be when the train splits - according to the timetable that was at Preston.
There seemed to be another stop at about 330am. Not sure whether it was the lack of motion that woke me or noises.  I woke again at 530  didn't get back to sleep  and  then got up at 6am  ( not an unheard of waking time in the summer months).

Breakfast was provided.  It would have been brought to my cabin  if I was still there at 730. Breakfast whilst watching the scenery was quite pleasant .

 The rest of the journey was through the Scottish highlands  with the potential for some nice  scenery if you are 1 - interested and 2 - paying attention

So we arrived in Inverness at 835am.  A taxi to the Airport go me there at 905am , after a fairly slow journey behind a car towing a tin tent. As I had checked in online and had no hold luggage I went straight through security to the departure lounge. Back in Kirkwall at 1015 and in at work  at 1030 am .

Would I travel again this way ?

Certainly.
For flying back in the evening the last flight into Kirkwall lands at 1930 leaving Aberdeen 1840. So with a time between flights and a 90 minute flight from London, You have to check in at ~ 1500. So leave Central London 1400-1430. This way you can attended things in the afternoon and evening and then travel. And  flying back in the morning  the first flight is from Gatwick at 7am. So get to Gatwick at 6am.......... And with connections its easily lunchtime before you are  in Kirkwall.

The downsides

• Sleep - but next time Id probably have a glass of something to help me sleep (as the regulars seemed to be doing).
• With a delayed train I'd miss the flight connection at Inverness, and there are only 2 a day to Kirkwall.  I chose Inverness as it was likely to be a good deal quieter than the alternatives, and therefore  easier for security etc.  
• The train hasn't got WiFi. I could have check up on the morning papers whilst having breakfast and speeding past Pitlochry and Blair Atholl

So perhaps its the Caledonian Sleeper to Aberdeen or Edinburgh next time. Someone has tried the Caledonian Sitter 

There are more alternatives as well - Easyjet Gatwick to Inverness, B&B in Inverness...............

The Caledonian Sitter

 And a guest blogger :

Having visited Orkney 4 times now I have discovered that there are only two options to get there: quickly (which isn't actually that quick) or cheaply. Previously I've gone for the quick option and flown up from both Luton and City airports and had to sacrifice purchasing a couple of pairs of sought after Jimmy Choos.

I've been persuaded to try the overnight train from Euston to Aberdeen to see what its like before he ventures out onto it. For further details see the Scotrail website

For this delightful train ride you have two options a bed or a seat. As I was going for the cheap option I decided to get a seat for a mere £33 rather than splash out close to £100 for a bed. As the journey was 10 hours and 18 minutes, it meant that my seat cost me £0.053 a minute. Not bad value really.


The seats are large - more like airline seats and they all recline slightly so it didn't seem too bad. And if worse came to worse I had seasons 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones to keep me company. Despite my hopes that I would have a carriage to myself I wasn't the only person to be persuaded into a seat and there were about 12 people in my carriage.

One thing I like about travelling on trains is seeing the countryside and looking out the window. However, for most of the journey this was my view:

The journey itself wasn't too bad as there is a bar open until 7am serving food and drinks. And gin. I was especially thankful for the gin.

I managed to get a couple of hours asleep before arriving in Edinburgh at around 4am. What they don't warn you about is that the train splits into three at Edinburgh – one part goes to Aberdeen, one to Inverness and the other to Fort William (I think). Which isn't the most delicate or quiet of processes. We were in Edinburgh for around 40 minutes before setting off again. Now what you don't get when travelling by plane is the views – which were beautiful. Who knew that Inverkeithing was so delightful at 5am.

The train makes several stops between Edinburgh and Aberdeen but because they're just dropping off and not picking up the train was actually running ahead of schedule so we got into Aberdeen around 7.25 ahead of the scheduled 7.35. This gave me plenty of time to get to the airport to catch the 9.05 flight.  

All in all, not a bad way to travel and I would probably do it again – it has the advantage that you can do a days work travel overnight and then have a full day in Orkney the next day. Although next time I will get a bed.