garybear

I am looking at quickest alternatives to get from Dublin to Bournemouth in October. Flybe seems to offer the best solution with a direct flight to Southampton, but have not heard of them before. Anyone have recent experience flying with them? I checked the airlinequality.com site and they get mixed reviews; people either love them or hate them and not much in between.

dotheboyshall

They are a regional airline based in the UK, the flight will be short and compared to the alternatives for this trip far superior.

janisj

dotheboyshall beat me to it.

Cathinjoetown

I've flown flybe several times between France and the UK. Need to comply exactly with luggage restrictions or face steep fees. Seats and toilets incredibly small but for short flights, they're fine. Bonus is by landing in Southampton, you're very close to Bournemouth, 30 minutes by car or train.

Gordon_R

They are a very well known budget regional airline in Europe. I've flown with them countless times. Southampton airport is their main hub - a well or gained, efficient small airport with good onward road and rail connection.

Gordon_R

They are a very well known budget regional airline in Europe. I've flown with them countless times. Southampton airport is their main hub - a well or gained, efficient small airport with good onward road and rail connection.

Gordon_R

Autocorrect strikes again. I meant "well organised".

sofarsogood

Southampton is well-rated regional airport as evidenced by this recent survey.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28884725

Avoid the larger airports if you can.

garybear

Thanks all for info!

flanneruk

Is there a reason you're not flying direct from Dublin to Bournemouth on Aer Lingus?

If there is (and I'm not sure those flights operate 365 days a year), then you're asking entirely the wrong question.

The railway station at Southampton airport is overwhelmingly (at least if you're getting a southbound train) the most convenient onward transport facility at an airport, short of having your own helicopter waiting alongside the plane, available anywhere on this planet. And the only way of getting directly to that station from Dublin is by Flybe.

The alternatives to the 50 yard, entirely stepfree, walk from inside an arriving plane to the ticket machines on the southbound platform, from where trains go directly into Bournemouth, are all so horrid by comparison that, even if Flybe were operated by a reincarnation of mid-70s Cambodian Airlines on mid 50s Tupolevs using East German stewardesses, it'd still be preferable.

Flybe is none of those things. The few minutes' flying time is a trivial part of the elapsed time for an Ireland-Bournemouth journey - and can easily account for an even titchier proportion of the mental stress involved.

If those ridiculous websites invented to let whingers let off steam carry a few stories about Flybe's tea being too hot, or their staff undeferential, they merely demonstrate the folly of consulting them - unless you want confirmation of what tossers so many customers reveal themselves to be. It doesn't matter whether Flybe could be more pleasant: the only real alternative to it is trying to get from a plane at Heathrow to Bournemouth in the same decade.

Southampton airport can be less idyllic if you're hiring a car there to get to Bournemouth: though it's only a few minutes from aeroplane seat to getting a car onto the M27 motorway, for much of the year you're likely to spend as long as the flight took fuming in static traffic as the M27 turns into the A31 15 miles west.

If daylight permits, it's well worth seeking the hire people's advice about the (ultimately) scenic route to Bournemouth via the M271 and A35 through the New Forest via Lyndhurst.