Fly Flybe? Maybe! (flybe.com)

Member Name: English Lady

Product:	flybe.com
Date:	31/05/05 (825 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap,cheaper still if you book early!

Disadvantages: some old planes in the fleet

I am afraid of heights, let me get this straight before I start, I am so scared I cannot even go higher than three steps up a step ladder for fear of falling. So as you can imagine flying has never really been on my agenda, well until early May this year that is.

I was going to attend a meet of folks from one of my most frequented websites, I had a lift and I was all sorted, until the lady I was going to go with couldn’t get the time off work. Heeeelllp! Along came Ann, a PA in her job and the worlds best organiser. Before I could blink she’d found me a solution to my problem. I could fly from Manchester to Southampton Airport (the meet up occurring in Bournemouth) for £41.80, less than half the price of a train ride.

So this is how I ended up flying with Flybe for my very first flight, booking the tickets was incredibly easy using their website. www.flybe.co.uk . Simply enter in the airport you want to leave from, the airport you want to fly to, and the dates you want to go. Add in how many folks will be flying and press the button. The site does all your hard work and will spit out at you all the flights for that day. Pick your favourite time, then click one more button and you’ll get a confirmation page telling you exactly how much you’ll be paying, including the airport tax, for your flights. Happy with it? Continue once again to a page where you need to fill in your name and address and credit card details and then you’re done. You receive an email with a copy of your confirmation page, but at some point print that off, you need the booking reference number to check in, and there is all your other useful information contained in your confirmation, printing it off means you know exactly what’s what, though as long as you have that booking code, then you’re fine, as far as I can work out!

The booking process is that simple and the key to getting a cheap flight is booking early. Book your flight early enough and you can get fares for as little as 99p each way, which even with factoring in airport tax you’re looking at less than forty quid for a return ticket to places in the UK. The website offers you opportunity to book cheap accommodation and a hire car too, which has got to be handy. It’s all easily accessible and before I knew it, I’d booked myself a seat on a plane. Gulp.

Now one thing you need to make sure you have is an item of photo ID or you’re not flying. I got myself a CitizenCard, which is perfectly acceptable for internal UK flights, this is a list taken directly from the site, of what is acceptable ID for internal, UK flights.

Acceptable forms of Photographic ID are:
* A valid passport - (an expired passport can be used up to a maximum of two years after expiry (UK to UK only).
* Valid photographic EU or Swiss national identity card
* Valid photographic driving licence
* Valid armed forces identity card
* Valid police warrant card/badge
* Valid airport employees security identity pass
* A child on parent’ s passport is an acceptable form of ID
* CitizenCard
* Valid photographic firearm certificate
* Valid Government-issued identity card
* SMART card
* Electoral identity card

Next, as you prepare for your flight, you need to know the maximum weight for your luggage, on my internal flight the maximum weight was 20 kg with a 5kg allowance for hand luggage, but please note, there is a maximum size for your hand luggage, 45x35x15 cm, so check your bag fits these specs, or your hand luggage won’t be allowed on with you.

Other things to know, you can transfer the name on your ticket up to 6 days before departure at a cost of £25, you can also change the time/day of your flight up to 2 hours before departure for the same price.

Right so, that’s all the general detail, now for the experience.

Manchester is a big airport, but I found my check -in with little problem. I checked in with about an hour and half to spare, the only limit on this is you need to check in at least 45 minutes before your flight. Check in is easy, make sure you have your booking number to hand, I just took my print out, and your photo ID and the process will be painless. You get a seat allocated to you at the time and I was very glad to be able to choose a non-window seat!

So after what seemed like an eternity of a wait in the airport, after the interesting wander through metal detectors and duty free I ended up at the gate looking at, a toy plane. Well it looked like a toy compared to some of the other monsters scattered about! The plane was small, with little propellers on it’s wings and “Flybe” written along it’s side. It looked clean and new from a distance, and as I stepped in, I was glad to see it looked the same inside.

The steward was smiling and very helpful, telling me exactly where to look for my sea,. in fact he was calm, confident and efficient throughout the flight, and even managed to look not too silly during the safety talk! The flight was surprisingly nice! I had enough leg room for a brief journey, though if it were any longer than an hour I’d have felt a bit cramped. I looked out of the window even and the only bit I was a bit jumpy over was the landing. The plane didn’t make any strange noise and we were down within about 40 minutes, not the hour quoted on my ticket.

Picking up my luggage at Southampton was easy, and if there had have been a problem, I had a barcode on the label on my bag, and a barcode on my bit of the label and it could all be traced by that, thankfully I didn’t need to test it’s efficiency though!

So on my first flight they did well, getting 5 stars for putting me at my ease, for keeping me comfortable and most importantly keeping me alive!

After a day and night of meet-up debauchery I was ready to return home. Finding check -in at Southampton was easier than at Manchester and I was offered the opportunity to take my main luggage on the plane with me as hand luggage as well as my actual hand luggage. Funky! I was again asked my seat preference and got an aisle seat, I checked in about an hour early, I guess the closer to the 45 minutes check in cut off the less likely you are to get a seat choice.

6.30pm was on it’s way round and I sat in departures, butterflies in my stomach aching to take off, when an announcement is made concerning my flight. There is a problem with the plane and it will not be taking off as planned, the next information will be available at 8pm. Well not a good start to the journey home, however we were all offered a £3.50 food voucher to compensate for the delay, so it wasn’t all bad. Luckily, just before 8pm our flight was announced as ready to board.

However, the plane I saw this time did not look new and shiny, it was an old, off-white (dirty) thing, with no Flybe logo on it, the only good difference being it looked bigger than the plane I flew in on. Walking into the plane didn’t put my fears to rest either, the interior looked as old, worn and dated as it’s exterior. I did get a whole row of 3 seats to myself though.

The stewardesses seemed stressed and rushed, the pilot kept having to tell them hat to do over the tannoy, and this really didn’t put me at my ease! I guess that the young girls were new to it, and we all have to start somewhere, but I was close to getting down on my knees in the aisle and praying for my redemption.

The flight did not improve, the noise the plane made was at best a little irritating and at worst down right scary, at one point in our descent the whole plane shook and creaked and squealed. The plane on the way in made no such movements or noises! I tell you, I was glad to touch down and get my feet back on the floor!

So, I’d say I’d be generous to give them 2 stars on the way home, one for a whole row of seats to myself, and one for getting me back in one piece!

Now to be fair, some of the scariness of the journey back may have been embedded in my head because of knowing the flight had been delayed due to a major fault with the plane, this was probably in my mind all the way home and I might not have been so concerned if I’d not known about the repair.

So will I fly again? Maybe, if it were the cheapest option or I was going somewhere I really wanted to go and could only get to by plane.

Will I fly with Flybe again? If they’re the cheapest option, yes, I guess I would. Both journeys were comfortable and both journeys got me to my destination, even if one was significantly nicer than the other, if you average them out, it wasn’t to bad at all.

Oh and of course the most important factor is they are cheap, I like a bargain!

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