Ryanair ex-Gatwick

I've booked some flights back from London with Ryanair ex-Gatwick and I'm just wondering if anyone knows what the Ryanair & security queues are like there ? From what I can see they only fly from there to Ireland, so I'm not sure if this means everything goes quickly because there are relatively few flights or whether it goes pretty slowly because Ryanair only use one desk in what is a very busy airport.

As it stands, the flights are booked and I'm going anyway, but I was just wondering what to expect in terms of queueing. The flight is about 2030 on a Saturday night, so I expect that the place will be full of people getting charters off to sunny places.

The fare (£10 per person, including everything) was pretty hard to beat and the good mention of the Gatwick Express in a recent post convinced me to use Gatwick. The fare from London City was about €140 per person, so unfortunately the mini-zags don't get to experience the speed and efficiency of the airport yet . . . one of these days they will.

z

flew back to dublin from there the week before last on their 5.30pm flight. there was queues for checking in and security whiched moved along nicely. mush quicker then dublin anyway.

Zag,
Since Gatwick handles a huge number of holiday charters, you can expect it to be really busy during the summer period and at Christmas. It will be busy but the queues do move as BigJoe has already said. They have a separate security lane for Republic and i think Channel Isles passengers.

If you wanted to save a few extra euro, you could consider taken the National Express coach from gatwick to Victoria Coach Staion (other side of road from Victoria train station) I took it at Christmas, it's about half the price of the train. Probably better for getting into London than when you're maybe rushing to catch a flight back home. Takes about 80 minutes compared to 30 for the train.

hope this helps,

I think the normal train fare is about £15 one way but you can book it online with Ryanair for a tenner. Or mabe that's only for Stansted?

Clubman,
I think you can buy a discounted Gatwick Express ticket on the Ryanair flight, not sure of the exact price though,
National Express return fare from Gatwick to Victoria coach station is £12.20 stg.

There are 2 trains, the Gatwick Express and the regular one. Both go to Victoria Station and run every 15mins. The Express is £15 and the regular train £8.

The regular train takes 10 mins longer to get to Victoria. Tickets for both can be bought at the Airport once you leave customs. I have only arrived at Gatwick so cannot comment on security queues.

All details regarding transport options are available on the BAA website

I just rechecked the Gatwick Express website and I see the fare is £14.90 single for adults and £7.45 for children. I thought I had read in an earlier post that it was £9, but that may have been for normal 'BR' trains to Gatwick and not the Gatwick Express ones.

The reference to £10 in my earlier post was to the Ryanair fare from Gatwick to Dublin, not the train fare.

I'm actually getting the boat and train over, so I am only departing ex-Gatwick, not arriving.

z

Flew back from gatwick last week. got to the airport at 6.30 for 8.50 flight on sunday eve and went straight up to the check in desk, no queue whatsoever. There was a bit of a backlog for security so we went for a cuppa and 30 mins later there was no queue. Very stress free.

zag said:

I just rechecked the Gatwick Express website and I see the fare is £14.90 single for adults and £7.45 for children. I thought I had read in an earlier post that it was £9, but that may have been for normal 'BR' trains to Gatwick and not the Gatwick Express ones.

The reference to £10 in my earlier post was to the Ryanair fare from Gatwick to Dublin, not the train fare.

I'm actually getting the boat and train over, so I am only departing ex-Gatwick, not arriving.

z

Click to expand...

Regular fare on the non Express trains is £9 somethign one way.

Unless you're travelling at rush hour I'd just get the normal "Southern" Train .. they're at least as frequent at the Gatwick Express and less than 10 minutes longer journey from Victoria (they stop only at Clapham Junction & East Croydon)

If you're not that close to Victoria it may be as easy to get the "First Capital Connect" trains from London Bridge they're actually just as fast as the Gatwick Express taking only 30 mins to get to Gatwick

Check www.nationalrail.co.uk for details.

Cool - thanks for the replies. I hadn't considered that the trains to Gatwick would originate elsewhere in London. We will be up near Kings Cross (Brtish Museum) on the Saturday, so it makes even more sense to get the Thameslink train from there. We can leave our bags at the hotel there too . . . cool.

Glad to hear the queues weren't too bad either. I'm afraid there's one thing that runs through the generations in the zag family and that is an intense dislike of waiting in queues for a long time - hence the boat/train over to London in the first place.

z