Lufthansa has announced that they’ll be starting direct flights from London Heathrow to Milan Malpensa from 29th March 2009. The flights are part of Lufthansa’s strategy to get more involved in the Italian market and create another hub at Malpensa airport. (more…)
It’s always great to have a weekend away to Brugge (the Flemish spelling, Bruges is the French spelling) in the run up to Christmas in order to get away from the stresses and hassles of London. Last year I had an excellent trip on the Eurostar to Brussels and stayed in the NH Brugge (which was the Sofitel Brugge when I booked, but confusingly was rebranded the week before I stayed there). This time around I will be flying bmi to Brussels and staying in the Crowne Plaza Brugge.
I discovered bmi’s frequent flyer programme - diamond club only a few months ago and it has proven to be one of the most generous frequent flyer programmes in existence. However, with Lufthansa taking over bmi in January it’s very likely that diamond club will be merged with Lufthansa’s much less generous Miles & More scheme.
I often take advantage of the Crowne Plaza in Shoreditch (formerly the Saint Gregory Hotel before it became part of IHG) as it’s minutes away from work and means I can have a decent night out in Central London, have a good breakfast and not have to bother commuting to work feeling worse for wear.
KLM plan to offer flights from Liverpool to Amsterdam Schiphol from 29th March 2009. Although this route is already served by easyJet, KLM are primarily going after the market of passengers who would like to fly from their local airport and connect to worldwide destinations at Schiphol rather than making the drive or train journey to Heathrow and dealing with the hassles that involves. KLM offer more UK connections to their primary hub than any other airline making it a popular choice for those who live outside of London. However, the south coast of England is not currently served by any KLM services although they do codeshare with Air France out of Southamption.
One service that I’ve started to use recently is National Express dot2dot. The service is effectively a shared minibus taxi service from Heathrow Airport to Central London. The price is significantly cheaper than a taxi and compares favourably with the Heathrow Express. As this service picks you up at your door and drops you off at the terminal you don’t have the hassle of getting to the station and then fighting with the crowds. How does this compare with other means of getting to the airport?
I had hoped that National Express East Coast (NXEC) would provide a loyalty scheme that’d encourage people off the planes and onto the trains. The new scheme was recently announced and is called ‘escape’ and launches on the 1st December. I used to find the GNERtime scheme excellent but this new scheme is really hardly any incentive at all. Here’s how they compare… (more…)