JFC Travel Blog

The last time I’ve flown from Gatwick Airport was back in 2004 but as there was engineering works on the GNER line over the weekend I decided to take the plane rather than the train to Newcastle for a change.

It is possible to fly from London City to Newcastle using Eastern Airways however they do not operate a service on the weekends. I wanted to be in Newcastle around noon so I decided to leave plenty of time to spare. I booked flight BA8073 which is the 7am service from Gatwick.

I live near London Bridge so Gatwick Airport is the second most convenient London airport after London City. During the day a First Capital Connect (Thameslink) service runs from London Bridge and calls at Gatwick Airport, it’s a lot cheaper and more convenient than having to make my way to Victoria for the Gatwick Express.

As it’s been a while since I’ve been to Gatwick I decided to leave in plenty of time as I didn’t know how bad security lines would be. The good news is that the Thameslink service to the airport runs 24 hours a day, the bad news is the out of hours service does not stop at London Bridge because it is closed at this time. So a quick trip on a nightbus got me to Blackfriars station. I decided to play it safe and get the 0504 train which got me into Gatwick just before 6am.

Once off the train just follow the signs to the North Terminal (all BA flights depart from there) and it takes you to a monorail to connect to the North Terminal. I’d checked in online and was only taking hand baggage. I didn’t have access to a printer when I checked in online so I found an empty counter at the ticket office and they printed me out a boarding pass.

Security was fairly quiet, all domestic passengers have their photo taken and a barcode stuck on their boarding pass. This is because international and domestic passengers use the same departure hall in this terminal. I cleared security and was in the departures hall within 5 minutes. Had a few minutes to look round, decided to pick up a drink and sandwich at Boots where the cashier cracked my credit card by pushing it into the chip and pin reader too hard!

Followed the signs to the gate, a security guard mans the passageway leading to these gates that are used for domestic flights. He scans your barcode to make sure that you match your picture. You are not asked to show photo ID when flying BA domestically.

Boarding was odd, the gate agents look at the boarding pass but they didn’t tear off and keep the main section. I was at the very front of the aircraft (already knew this as I chose my seat on check-in). BA domestic flights are one class of service.

Service on board was excellent for such a short journey. Staff were friendly and always on hand to top up your tea, there was a hot meal served which you don’t expect these days on such a short flight. It was a traditional breakfast - bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, etc. Nothing special but a nice touch.

Plane landed on time and was on the Metro platform in about 10 minutes, almost as quick as arriving into London City. From the airport my Metro journey takes about 40 minutes (to central Newcastle is about 20). Overall not a bad journey.

I’d make this journey again whenever there’s any problems with the trains such as weekend engineering work. However, all things considered usually the train will be a much quicker option when you take into account travelling to the airport, check-in, etc.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 11:11 am and is filed under Trip Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.