Great video - so many people don't appreciate how accessible PIK is. If you are south of Glasgow/M77 it's the closest and most accessible option. Tragic there aren't more passenger flights, PIK has direct rail link, motorway/dual carriageway to the door, two operational runways, rarely if ever fogbound and pilots love it; whilst the passenger terminal is sadly underused, the airport itself is used a lot, with plenty cargo, military and maintenance flights. it is far from dead, and I dearly wish more airlines would consider it and more people could use it.
@@saltire66 i would certainly prefer to use PIK in the future. I thought, like you, it was very accessible and also quite charming. Thanks for watching 👍
Turns out I was today's years old when I learned that Prestwick is not in fact the "old" name for Glasgow International, but is actually its own separate airport.🙄 Many thanks for teaching me the truth and for posting this enjoyable video!
Always count on me for adding to your knowledge... with some extra useless information... 😀 Always lovely to hear from you. As ever, best wishes and thanks for sticking along with the channel 👍
What is not widely known about Prestwick is that it nowadays serves mainly as a cargo and military airport. Lots of military transport planes like USAF C-17's and Hercules will make a stopover at Prestwick before or after crossing the pond. The Royal Canadian Air Force also setup shop in Prestwick as a European forward operating base for some of their Hercules aircraft 😉
Many years ago Prestwick was determined as sole the long-haul gateway for Glasgow. In the late 1960s when I worked in the trade BOAC provided me with a comp ticket to take one of its 707s on the domestic sectors LHR-MAN-PIK (the flight continued to Toronto). Back then there was a train station of sorts at Prestwick because I recall taking the train to Glasgow Central.
When I was a child, Prestwick was Scotland's ONLY international airport and the place to collect more passengers on the Heathrow to JFK route! Very sad whats happened to such a tremendous resource!!!
Thanks! We had a lovely time. Thank you, as ever, for watching 👍 Switzerland content to come, as I'm replying to you whilst i await my flight home from Basel.
When I was growing up, there was Glasgow Airport and Glasgow International which was Prestwick. Edinburgh wasn’t much of an airport then. Now clearly Edinburgh is the main airport for Scotland.
Blimey that's fighting talk. "Edinburgh airport is the main airport for Scotland". I'll hold your coat whilst the Glaswegians pop round... 😉 Me? I couldn't possibly comment. But i loved Prestwick. Best wishes to you 👍
I remember from old documentaries on TV that BOAC was quite snooty towards BEA. Abroad, a BOAC captain always stayed in a separate hotel to the rest of the crew.. a bit like Train Managers today! Have flown once from Prestwick.. a pleasure flight around Ayr a long long time ago. I think it was the only Glasgow airport back then in the 50s.
Yes I believe BOAC staff considered themselves more posh than their counterparts at BEA ... the latter served only short routes whereas BOAC was global and prestigious. In the USA at that time it would be like comparing PanAm (which operated only internationally) with a purely domestic operator like Amercan or United.
Hi Johnny! I last used Prestwick just prior to the Covid lockdown. It was exactly the same journey as yourself, though I moved on to Granada and Cordoba before returning to Malaga and a flight home to Edinburgh. My earliest memories of Prestwick were in the early 60s. An aunt lived in Chicago and Prestwick was a transatlantic airport then - Scotland's only one. Abbotsinch was not open in those days, though the nearby Renfrew Airport was, for domestic flights ... I think? Renfrew Airport has disappeared under the M8 and all sorts of developments. Anyway, Prestwick was also used by the USAF - hence Elvis stopping over - and the RAF. It was also regularly used when the UK's other main transatlantic airports were fog, or smog, bound. Prestwick, being on the coast was never troubled by those conditions. When Ryanair first flew from Scotland they chose Prestwick because it was cheaper for them. They offered all passengers half-price rail tickets to and from any station in Scotland to further boost passenger numbers. They still do. Ryanair still use Prestwick as a maintenance base for their aircraft but now operate the bulk of their routes from Edinburgh and to a lesser extent Glasgow International (Abbotsinch). The RAF base has gone, I think, but the USAF still have some sort of facilities there. Air Traffic Control also has a major operations base at Prestwick. As you say, having a direct rail link is ideal but I do not see Ryanair, or others, making increased use of Prestwick. Which is a shame.
What a great lot of memories and information! Thanks for adding all that. Someone else said about the half price fare. Ryanair never told me about that otherwise i would have certainly enquired at the ticket office to claim my discount! Thanks again for the comment and also for watching the video when there is so much else to grab our attention on RU-vid. It is much appreciated 👍
Thoroughly enjoyed your report as usual Johnny - funny you mention BOAC as I last visited Prestwick as an observer on a BOAC training flight….plenty of circuits snd bumps for a the pilots under training . Can’t remwber if it was a B707 or VC10. I joined BOAC in ‘69 and retired from BA. Looking forward to your next video already.
Thanks for the kind words Andy. Seems lots of people have memories of Prestwick! And, of course, thanks for watching too. Next video will be from Switzerland as I've literally just walked in the door after flying home...
My first flight was from Prestwick to Stansted in 1995. A rail fare of £5 from Wick to Prestwick International station was part of the deal. Good times! Great video as always.
Thanks Tim. Sorry i didn't know that there is still a rail deal when flying when i did this video! Best wishes to you. Looking forward to your NS video 👍
We have visited Zaragoza and Granada in Spain. Both have bus links from airport to centre. Zaragoza journey was about 45 minutes and the driver chucked the bus round the roundabouts as well going via all the industrial estates to fill up the bus. The train trip in Malaga looked very civilised and cheap!
Yes. It is so smooth and easy on the train. I flew into Geneva last week and again it was a pleasure to just walk down the stairs and hop into my train for Zurich. Thanks for watching 👍
"the driver chucked the bus round the roundabouts as well going via all the industrial estates to fill up the bus" - that would be the route and things have to be viable
I will be long dead by the time they get round to building a rail or tram link connecting Glasgow Airport (which Glaswegians of my generation often call Abbotsinch) to the centre of Glasgow. Every so often there are grandiose plans announced for such a link and then a few months later we hear that the plans in question have been quietly dropped.
I suspect you may be right! Of course, they only shelve the plans after the plans/studies have been written by one of the expensive consultancies 😉 Thanks for watching 👍
I like your videos because rail travel is the best. You should check out some of the rail routes in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Kaiserslautern to Trier is a nice trip.
Brilliant video as always!! Prestwick is mainly for cargo and military flights now. It is a shame that there are not more than a handful of flights and routes nowadays. Up until 2008, it was averaging 2million passengers a year , think that was when Ryabair had a full base there and concentrated on secondary airports then when it announced that it was going to operate as Glasgow City airport as well, believe most of the routes went. Hope all is well, take care.
The bus to Glasgow Airport can be very unreliable. Often 2 at once after a long wait. Journey time is probably going to be the same as Prestwick on the train. Good video and what a classic terminal. Hope you had a nice holiday.
Actually a mistake in my voiceover was to ignore my experience of the 500 bus, which has been variable to say the least. It certainly seems to take longer than it claims. Good point 👍
Hi Johnny, nice to see you in Scotland again. I hope you availed yourself of the 50% rail fare discount when presenting an air ticket? Used to use Prestwick a lot a few years ago when the cheapest tickets all seemed to be from there. However, my home town Edinburgh attracts most of the great prices and routes over Glasgow Airport .
Someone else mentioned this. I was completely unaware and i don't recall Ryanair's numerous preflight emails ever mentioning it either! I probably need to do another flight from there then! Thanks for watching 👍
Good, interesting video, as always. You wouldn’t have been so impressed if you’d seen Malaga Aeropuerto station before reconstruction! Interesting comparison of airport transport access costs - UK £10, Malaga £1.50 equivalent.
Ryanair has a maintenance base and cheaper landing fees at Prestwick. A mixture of military, cargo and training flights also use the airport but sadly other airlines haven't moved from Glasgow airport despite it not having a train station!
I suppose if the landing fees are a lot cheaper then an operator may choose to use it. But as it is there doesn't seem that a lot have done so. As i said, i am just fine with the 45 min hop from Glasgow. However for passengers coming into Queen Street station they can quite easily get the 500 bus from Buchanan Street bus station next door. Swapping to Central for another train could be an added hassle they might not fancy. Thanks so much for watching and commenting 👍
Prestwick may still have the east-west long runway that Glasgow lacks. Very much a transatlantic first landfall for military planes from the US in WW 2 . May still have an ex RN Gannet on display among the sheds and next to the fence on the east side.
Thanks for that. Yes, I suppose the US relationship with the military goes way back. Indeed that's why Elvis was passing through after all.. Thanks for watching 👍
Disgrace it’s even got Glasgow in the name. Should be called Robert Burns International. We don’t need any affiliation to Glasgow down here in Ayrshire.
Ah yes i appreciate your local view on that. Almost like if Exeter airport was renamed to "Bristol South"! But, on the bright side, you do get a local airport in Ayrshire. Thanks for watching and commenting 👍
@@JohnnyHooverTravels sorry to point it out like that I am very sorry if I offended you. Spelling mistakes are not anything tk be embraced about, don’t even worry about it ❤ my apologies, great video though :)))
@@transportlegend.shorts not at all annoyed with you! Just myself for the error. Thank you for pointing it out! I don't like giving incorrect information, but mistakes creep in. Keep correcting me in the future too as it is the only way i learn 👍
Everybody keeps telling me that but Ryanair didn't bother to tell me in any of their emails about the flight! Looks like i overpaid 🤷♂️ Best wishes to you and thanks for watching 👍
