And Spain and Italy are only 2 hours and £50 away - not miserable and cold there (well not cold, perhaps increasingly miserable)

2 hour flight......travel to the airport......clear security checks......check in 2 hours before take off.........takes a whole bloody day! When you get to Italy you cannot afford a beer!

soon will when the Lira is back, just pack your wheelbarrow!

2 hour check in to go to Europe? Not on any flight I've ever taken! Aren't security checks in between check in and flying (i.e. they add no time). What's it take to get from Nottingham to East Midlands airport? 30 minutes? You can easily be in any part of Europe before midday, even with the clocks going forward. You should try it.

Heathrow
Checking In

Check-In is located on the first floor of the terminal, along with Flight Departures. The roof of Terminal 4's short term car park is on the same level giving passengers direct access. Flight Arrivals are located on the ground floor.

International flights - check in 3 hours prior to departure
European flights - check in 2 hours prior to departure
Domestic flights - check in 1 hour prior to departure

Boarding usually begins around 45 minutes before departure.

East Mids

Please check your ticket or travel itinerary, or contact your airline for advice on check in times. Generally, check in desks open 2-3 hours before the flight is due to depart. East Midlands Airport recommends arriving at the terminal at least 2 hours before departure, even if you are using online check in.

I did try it.....

Fly from Bournemouth.

Bournemouth Airport recommends that all passengers arrive at the airport two hours prior to departure in order to leave plenty of time to complete the check in process and pass through check in and security.

Bournemouth Airport cannot be held responsible for passengers missing their flight because they did not allow sufficient time to pass through the check in and security process.

I think the 2 hours to clear security is the same in all UK airports for European flights. If you get there later and jam up behind one or two departures you will miss your flight and hard luck!
Bournemouth Airport does look nice though bit better than some of our other cattle stations certainly an easier travel route for us.
Last year we went the quicker route to Europe......rail via the chunnel...

Very civilised, but quickly becomes far more expensive than flying if you want to deviate far from Paris or Brussels (about £200 return to Sth of France)

On this (off) topic, I was sad to read about the likely demise of Sea France. We had many a happy day and weekend away with them from South London. They actually stuffed us around quite a few times too, but that was part of the charm... and boy they were cheap. As little as £15 return Dover-Calais. Ah, them was the days...

You'll probably be able to enjoy them vicariously when their old ferries are crossing the Cook Strait on a regular basis in about 20 years time!

Wonder what they will do with the duty free shop.......

Why would you fly to Europe from Heathrow?

Flew to Brittany from East Mids 3 weeks ago. Checked in online (which actually means you don't need to check in, go figure). But even so, as I had luggage, I dropped my luggage off 50 minutes before departure, no problems whatsoever. Why you would want to be at an airport 2 hours before departure when you've already checked in is beyond me! If you don't check in online the RyanAir advisory told me to check in no later than 40 (FOURTY) minutes before departure.

When I saw all those businessmen at the airport going for their Monday meetings in Europe I should have told them, forget it, it'll be Tuesday before you'll get there and Wednesday night before you're back again.

You can quote all the figures and recommendations you want but they actually mean diddly squat to what happens in the real world.

Well the staff at East Mids must be slackers because the 90 seconds it took me to get from the back of the queue of 5 people, belt off, shoes off, through the detector, belt on, shoes on must mean they're not doing their job properly? This on a busy Monday morning as well!