Route of the month: Alex McWhirter looks at how new services can benefit business travellers
London to Warsaw
This key route linking the capitals of the UK and Poland has lost two air services this year. British Airways abandoned its service from London City in the spring, while budget carrier Easyjet dropped its flights from Luton in August.
But all is not lost. Aer Lingus has decided to give the route a try with a new service starting October 25 from Gatwick. It comes at a time when the Irish carrier is making Gatwick its first base outside Dublin and Belfast – six of its A320s are based there. Other Aer Lingus business routes being launched this autumn from the Sussex airport are to Bucharest, Eindhoven in Holland, and Vilnius in Lithuania. Existing routes include Dublin, Munich, Vienna and Zurich.
What Aer Lingus offers
There is a single daily one-class flight. EI976 will depart from Gatwick at 1630, to reach Warsaw at 1950. The return flight EI977 departs at 2030 to land back into Gatwick at 2210.
Return fares start at £44 including taxes, fees and charges, but at busier times you can expect to pay upwards of £116. The carrier also offers flexible fares, although these are much more expensive.
Aer Lingus can best be described as a quasi-budget carrier. Like Easyjet and its ilk, the airline charges travellers for in-flight food and drink, and there is also a fee for checking in baggage and for booking. But unlike the others, it operates a frequent flyer scheme called the Gold Circle Club.
Membership comes in three tiers, with benefits including free tickets, lounge access, upgrades, guaranteed availability, and so on. Note that some benefits might be available only on Aer Lingus’s transatlantic routes, which feature business class on board its A330 aircraft.
The timings of the single daily flight may not suit everyone, but bear in mind that online agents mix and match flights. This means that when you book through the likes of opodo.co.uk, you may find Aer Lingus’s services are combined with those of other carriers.
So, assuming you are not taking your car to the airport, it would be possible to choose different timings in one direction by flying out with BA from Heathrow and back with Aer Lingus into Gatwick, or vice versa.
The competition
When it comes to price, the only rival to Aer Lingus is Wizz Air. The Hungarian budget carrier operates up to three times a day from Luton, with prices starting from £50 return. The main services on the route are operated by British Airways and LOT Polish Airlines out of Heathrow.
LOT flies three times a day and British Airways twice daily. Both charge upwards of £150 for a return.
Not to be overlooked are the indirect carriers operating out of London City airport, which include KLM, Lufthansa and Swiss International Air Lines. Readers may scoff at the suggestion of booking indirect rather than taking a nonstop flight, but for anyone living or working near LCY, there is little, if any, time to be saved in taking a direct flight from one of the capital’s other airports.
Swiss charges upwards of £128 for its service, connecting at either Zurich or Geneva. Lufthansa prices its flights from £159, with possible connections at Dusseldorf, Frankfurt or Munich. KLM has links via Amsterdam, costing from £208.
