Newcastle news: Flybe launches Heathrow and Belfast, Emirates adds flights

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• Ian says:

  3 Nov3 November 04:20

  Good news! BA closing the lounge and reducing flights hit airports like NCL hard. Difficult to be loyal to BA when they don’t care about us!? Hopefully Qatar launches soon.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    3 Nov3 November 09:21

    There’s five flights NCL-LHR today I’m fairly sure that’s pretty much back at pre-COVID frequencies. Of course that’ll put even more pressure on the absolutely awful Aspire lounge.

    • PerkyPat says:

      3 Nov3 November 09:40

      Who needs the Aspire Lounge when theres a Greggs, whose bacon rolls are far superior to the ones in the lounge.

      • Rich says:

        4 Nov4 November 12:05

        Right now, somewhere in Shoreditch, a marketing agency is pitching the idea of a Greggs takeover of the Aspire lounge, complete with a sausage roll flavoured aromatherapy area.

• KevinS says:

  3 Nov3 November 06:40

  Hopefully the people who unfairly say the site only ever talks about London will post some positive comments about this article!

  • Erico1875 says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:06

    I don’t think people complain HFP is London focused. More BA being London focused.
    Although London and south probably half the UK population.
    Birmingham is even that far away

    • KevinS says:

      3 Nov3 November 07:08

      “More BA being London focused.”

      That’s fine but BA aren’t the only airline around. I live near Heathrow but use other airlines most of the time.

• Harry T says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:37

  My best advice to anyone is to not use the Aspire lounge, it’s absolute cack and full of awful people. I have access as a BA gold member these days and it’s a pale shadow of what a lounge should be for BA’s customers.

  Great to see some competition on the route to LHR! And hopefully if emirates can see value in their Newcastle services, other airlines will also show an interest 🙂

  • lumma says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:59

    +1 the aspire lounge is full of people trying to get as much “value” from their entry fee as possible

    • Numpty says:

      3 Nov3 November 09:12

      mentioned this before, but the lounge at GLA used to have to barrier off the self pour alcohol depending on what flight was leaving. Was told that one passenger had even filled the baby bottle with alcohol.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        3 Nov3 November 13:20

        First mistake was self pour in Newcastle 😂

    • Harry T says:

      3 Nov3 November 09:24

      Agreed!

  • Doc says:

    3 Nov3 November 10:49

    There are no awful people in NCL- we’re all lovely! Flybe to LHR is slot protection- far better would be LGW; the last time there was a LGW service was when Dan Air operated it. I now live in Hove and it’s a pain for family to get to me via LHR. I’m sure there’s plenty of VFR traffic around LGW aside from any connections.

    • S says:

      3 Nov3 November 11:40

      Both BA and Jet2 have had a NCL LGW service within the last 15 years if my memory serves correctly

      • Mark says:

        3 Nov3 November 16:14

        After Dan Air went under, Cityflyer Express started the route. Became a BA franchisee. Gill also operated it twice a day via Teesside for a while. Jet2 did also try for a bit, ironically using a former Dan-Air BAe 146.

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:

        4 Nov4 November 08:37

        The old Flybe also attempted NCL-LGW (with a BA codeshare) at one point and I’m pretty sure easyJet also gave the route a go.

        Because of the good train connections to London it seems only BA can manage to keep running NCL-LON presumably because they also have the connecting traffic.

        I’d like to see someone try NCL-LCY again. The last time that route was operated was by Eastern Airways back when GNER operated the east coast mainline. The flights were never cheap, it was cheaper to buy a turn up and go rail ticket (this was before the time flexible train tickets rocketed in price) than book a few weeks in advance of the LCY-NCL flight.

    • Bagoly says:

      3 Nov3 November 14:31

      You’ve got me there.
      On a flying website, “VFR” prompts Visual Flight Rules but that doesn’t seem to make sense in your sentence?

      • tony says:

        3 Nov3 November 15:11

        Visiting friends & relatives. It’s a term that I believe is more commonly used in lesser developed parts of the world where people will return checking in washing machines, 50″ plasma TVs and plug in sun-beds. So yeah, quite apt for NCL 🤣

        • Hbommie says:

          3 Nov3 November 15:17

          Feeling the love

• Nicky says:

  3 Nov3 November 08:35

  Flybe would have been better off flying to Gatwick from Newcastle. To get from Heathrow to Gatwick is a pain, especially for Orlando flights

• Andrew. says:

  3 Nov3 November 09:09

  It’s something that concerns me now I’m looking to book next Summer’s holiday for the Scottish contingent.

  Outbound is a bit of a pest, but we’re planning on staying overnight at the Hampton at Gatwick. So a relaxed Heathrow – Faringdon on Elizabeth, then Faringdon to Gatwick on Thameslink.

  Coming back though, I really don’t want a “computer says no” event at Heathrow if the 3 hours between LGW arrival and LHR departure to EDI/GLA is inadequate. There’s nothing on the BA site to give me confidence otherwise.

  • Numpty says:

    3 Nov3 November 09:28

    I know what you mean, not the same scenario as yourself, but i have seen connecting pax getting off a delayed GLA flight and trying to get up the escalator into departure hall and being refused entry by security staff as they were past a cut off time for their next flight (further adding to their delay whilst waiting on a supervisor).

    Also the connection times when booking on BA can throw up odd results, book it straight through and its all ok, book the same flights but as a stopover in London, which it gives the option to do, and it will then refuse to proceed due to lack of time between flights.

• Richard says:

  3 Nov3 November 09:25

  Never had an issue getting into the Aspire lounge unless it clashes with an Emirates flight. If you’re on the early BA flight it’s a bit of a nightmare as those off to Alicante et all do like an early morning gin and it can get a bit noisy. There is however a quiet zone.
  NCL is a great airport and you speedily get through security without any hassle. It’s when you get to LHR that the stress starts!

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    3 Nov3 November 09:39

    As long as you’re connecting to another flight from T5 arriving from a BA domestic flight is great as you get to bypass the LHR security. Apart from security I can’t really think of anything else stressful at LHR.

    Unfortunately if you’re connecting to another terminal then you have to deal with both a bus and security when connecting.

    • S says:

      3 Nov3 November 09:55

      I agree, I have had a few close calls on the NCL flight transiting through T5 but never a disaster. For my money its a pretty efficient way to do it. I am on BA1335 tomorrow however connecting through T2 so staying the night instead

      As for the NCL Aspire lounge I’d rather sit in the bar upstairs

• ankomonkey says:

  3 Nov3 November 09:45

  TK also starting flights to NCL next year according to a post on FT. Baklava stotties all round 🙂

• ADS says:

  3 Nov3 November 12:37

  So was FlyBE’s “non-arrival of promised Dash 8 aircraft from its lessors” excuse for cancelling the Isle of Man routes just an outright lie ?

  btw, his twitter handle is @SeanM1997

  • Rob says:

    3 Nov3 November 13:29

    You could say that, I couldn’t possibly comment.

    I see Sean is now wearing a suit and not a pilots hat in his Twitter profile, clearly trying to go upmarket 🙂

    • ADS says:

      3 Nov3 November 14:48

      ah … so we’re back to Fly Maybe !

      amazing how much content Sean puts on twitter – you’d think he would want to monetise it on a website

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