Flying to Cornwall on Eastern Airways from Gatwick to Newquay | Trip report 

Thanks James! Please keep me honest if i start doing that! My aim here is to share what i experience, and if people watch it and like it that’s a bonus!

Thanks! Yeah it was a great set of surprises for a flight I was expecting to be fairly simple and non eventful. Thank you, hopefully another next week :)

Thanks Alex!

Awesome, thank you!

The easiest way!

Thanks for watching :)

Thanks Paul, this sounds like the way forward!

Hope you enjoyed it!

@@JTsJourneys have subscribed - glad to support a fellow traveller!

Thanks for the sub!

Thank you! Much appreciated. Yeah I agree, a good value flight all round

Thanks, well worth it I thought vs taking the train and it taking half a day!

Cheers Mark! Can’t fault the crew at all, very friendly and seemed to enjoy sharing their airline with everyone.

Thank you! No new video this week (sorry) but next week I’ll have one live :)

Thanks Andrew, I'll take the feedback onboard for the next one

Like me living in the middle of Lancashire. I can hear the Leeds to Dublin or Belfast ATR's flying over at about 13000 ft

Super, it must fly over a few times a day?

Excellent! Sounds like excellent service

@@JTsJourneys yeah it was great

Thanks

Thanks! Sounds like an experience I missed out on :/

Got fog bound on one of those flights, flying north. A four hour delay at Plymouth, a return to Newquay and then finally landing at Gatwick, meant I only had minutes to get to my connecting flight .Moroccan Air to Marakesh. Luckily they were delayed too but slow access through security was pretty fraught!

@@LovelyFish-wg1dq That must have been very stressful ! Thank you for sharing that memory. I had a delay there once caused by fog, when booked to fly to Glasgow via Bristol. Newquay was ok, so I was rebooked on the London flight connecting to the Shuttle. In fact, I only arrived in Glasgow an hour later than originally scheduled. And as you might remember, the full breakfasts on the Shuttle services then were a very nice part of the experience.

Nice! I need to fly through Southampton again soon. Haven’t been there since the Flybe days

Thank you!

Agreed, the train route is lovely on a sunny day

I look forward to seeing the difference. My flight was summer last year so it could have changed. Agreed re the miss on Flybe. They were hit and miss but they had some cool jets. It’s a shame Logan air haven’t tried this, their erjs would be good fun

@@JTsJourneys Newquay wasn't an easy option to get to by driving or public transport from Bournemouth, so I did a multi-city route over 48 hours from Exeter to Dublin to Newquay to Gatwick and it worked a treat to tick off two unique UK Airports! 😄✈

That's an epic detour! Worth it though to tick the airport off. I need to do the same with BOH; I can get to Bournemouth station easy enough but unsure how to get as far as the airport

@@JTsJourneys Either use your own car, get a taxi or get in touch with a local! That's my advice.

Ah I might need to get in touch when I'm down for a lift

Thank you for sharing this! I was bloody confused when I saw the markings without aircraft names next to them. Is this to prevent the need for repainting as new aircraft come online or something else?

I have no clue im guessing so but its easier tbh we can just look at tje graph at the head of stand so we can sorta judge where itll stop :)

ah, thank you ! I'll look out for these at other airports now :)

Yeh I was going to say. There's so many aircraft types these days that it's easier to categorise them into 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Great story! Is St Mawgan the old name for the base on Newquay?

@@JTsJourneys Used to be RAF St Mawgan.

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching

Completely agree. The only redeeming feature is the scenery

I can agree

True, those gates are a bit of a walk...

I think that's it, if you're close to the airport and are going nearby on the other end it's more time efficient. The train is no doubt better to work from as you can nab a table and have more space to move about, but for my journey the flight was quicker even considering travel to the airport & that whole experience.

Great question, and I’m not quite sure. I wasn’t aware of any sister airline etc but often eastern do charter work with the erj fleet so could have been one of those?

@JTsJourneys I just googled a bit and it turns out they do now fly to Schiphol from Newcastle. And they're Embraers, so I was slightly overestimating their size.

KLM wet leased these embrears due to crew shortages in the klc fleet. If you look at the side of the embrears you’ll see a small ‘operated on behalf of klm’

Can confirm, Eastern are operating on behalf of KLM Cityhopper on a wet lease contract.

If you can get it cheap enough it’s worth a ride!

Now the sleeper train I've heard great things about. It's my plan for the next time I'm down that way. How did you find it?

@@JTsJourneys Superb

Hopefully all will be okay. (Based on no knowledge) I’d say likely weather or atc restrictions at Gatwick for the cancelled flights

Direct on the eastern website, good luck!

Thank you for the feedback

On Eastern it was downloaded into a PDF which I stored on my phone (although you could print too). On most airlines though they allow you to add to your wallet apps so it pops up as a ticket with a barcode

Totally agree, a no brainer from those airports. I drove from there once and it took 6 or 7 hours on a good day. Thanks for the sub :)

Good call, it's a while since I've been on Loganair. I think the last time was in covid when they stopped service, one for me to try again soon

Only on some flights. I recently did MAN-IOM and there was nothing in a 30 min flight. Yet the time before there was coffee/tea and the usual shortbread/tunnocks wafer.

Seems inconsistent

Its crazy that running tramlines costs so much compared to running airlines

Devon has always struck me as a place that’s hard to get in and out of. Bristol is the nearest low cost airport? But that’s such a journey

Mix on words from me. Free stuff

It's a shame the trains aren't better tbh. I love flying but for shortish distances a fast train at a good price should win

Totally agree it's possible to get good value fares well in advance. When I put the video together the comparison advanced fare was £80, split into two advanced fares and that was booking at the same time as the flight. The super off peak came in at £82. I've seen fares down as low as £45 I seem to remember which I'd say is fair value for the inconvenience of the longer train.

To be fair, the trains are awful and uncomfortable. Also, they are delayed more often than not, and I take the train all the time. Furthermore, with GWR, those supposed cheap fares are NOT always available.

Totally agree. I’m 30 mins from Gatwick but an hour from Paddington so the plane will always be faster for me.

I’d have managed to stay dry! Not sure if jet bridges can reach the door on the atr as you always board from the back?

@@JTsJourneys Nope, they definitely can't, alas.

Good question. Dash 8 for sheer power and speed, used to fly on them a lot with Flybe. Atr seems more economical but they are slower, maybe a roomier cabin? How about you?

@@JTsJourneys i havent flown on a ATR as they are very rare in Canada but have flown on the Dash 8 100s,300s & Q400 of Air Cda & Westjet...ty for the comparison

I've only flown the Q400 but I'd be keen to try the smaller variants. We have a few in Europe with Winderoe in northern Norway which I'd like to fly on.

I might make some more comparisons like this...

@@JTsJourneys Be interesting to see if the trains can compete on any level.

I guess it’s prone to bad weather in nqy?

😬 I used Southend quite a bit in the past when they had a flight to Manchester. Now that really was out of the way

@@JTsJourneys Now run by a bunch of rubber desk johnnies, who couldnt fly a kite between them! Like yourself I use internal flights almost weekly - Logan Air out of Scotland for example - when I enquired as to why not use Southend to Newquay, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Belfast et al, the reply was that they dont pick up the phone!

Have fun on the open road 🚙

😂😂

It's Dyalla - Like It Loud from the RU-vid music library ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rCAHNkpb7u4.html

@@JTsJourneys 👍 many thanks

😂 the worst bit is on the other side there’s no room for your left!

😂 the worst bit is on the other side there’s no room for your left!

I'd like to think they've improved. The accidents I can remember seem to be from airline issues rather than aircraft integrity

@@JTsJourneys I hope they are improving. Two areas of specific concern are the utilization of smaller carriers which pay lower salaries and consequently attract less experience pilots who work flying bigger jets on the big carriers and secondly the fact that they have a harder time dealing with lift loss due to icing and flying at a lower level are more prone to weather effects particularly wind shear and as we all know height is your friend as a pilot. However as I said it looks like a very competent operation delivering a good product. I think this is the sort of route the old AVRO/ Hawker Siddeley small cabin 4 jet would have flown well. If Eastern can grow the market then that would be good for all concerned as links to Cornwall are very poor indeed. On a personal note, it would be much more use to me if they had slots at LHR so I could connect to Transatlantic flights but that is unlikely until they can really grow the service..

With the new regulations in place for the UK and Europe, they would not survive. That may have been the case back in the 70s and early 80s, but not now. The only problem with these sought of carries are bad customer service, NOT safety. Eastern Airways has not always had good customer service, with dirty aircraft, poor service in flight, and rude cabin crew, but NOT safety!

@@ianplowman8689 Alas regulations do not ensure safety they are an enabler. I think the whole industry is improving but I am still uneasy on puddle jumpers.

As I understand it this might be a PSO route the government subsidises to improve connectivity. I've flown easyJet on this route before and I seem to remember BA flying the route during the covid years at one stage. Doubtful they'll bring it back though given FR are now on there from STN.

all of it or certain parts, would silence be better in the quiet bits?

Absolutely

Gatwick is near Crawley , which is around 37 miles away from London …..even though they sneakily add London in front of Gatwick ……….same as London Stanstead !

technically West Sussex?

😉 A London airport and close enough!!! I might be tempted to fly to Newquay from somewhere else!

​@thomash2806 it's a lot quicker than either driving or getting the train from the London area to Cornwall

@@martinharvey2390 I go to Cornwall as often as I possible but never to the London area…

Wow I can’t say my experience was like this. Maybe it’s a different base that has a different attitude?

Sounds like there are a mix of experiences within the comments here

Can see why they were rude and obnoxious to you

I can also see why they were rude and obnoxious to you. You’re an ass.

Did you have a bad experience with them?