Englishmum

I'm at Newark airport right now (where I do voluntary work once a week) and it's a bit chaotic in international arrivals....some of the Continental flights don't have gates at their dedicated terminal (C) and have now been allocated gates on a long-term basis starting today at terminal B (which is the terminal for other airlines from Europe and Asia). It seems that most of the Continental airlines staff haven't been informed and they haven't updated their website.

I was surprised to learn that one of the flights arriving at Newark (and sent to Terminal B where I'm located) is a daily flight from Bristol, England. This service only started a couple of months ago - and todays flight had a large passenger load so the airline has obviously marketed this route in the UK. The weird thing is that I've never seen nor heard of this new route advertised anywhere in the local US media (New York metro area). I would imagine that more than 99% of the passengers are British citizens....US residents probably don't even know that there is a daily flight to Bristol and also their new service to Belfast - for example this flight would have been great for when my cousins who live in Pembrokeshire, south west Wales came to visit - it was a long trek to LHR for them.

I know that a lot of people like to avoid travelling through Heathrow or Gatwick airports if they can help it. Personally I don't like the EWR-BHX (Newark-Birmingham) flight as the planes are 757-200 narrow bodied jets and they don't have individual TVs in economy ....on the other hand my mum doesn't mind at all as she can avoid travelling down to Heathrow. I thought I'd give a 'heads up' on other regional points in the UK you or your relatives can fly to/from if they also want to avoid London.

Here are the flights which Continental Airlines now operates from the UK regional airports to Newark, NJ (EWR) and of course Continental connects to most major domestic cities in the US. Sorry - I only have the incoming flight numbers:


Belfast , Northern Ireland - CO95

Birmingham (twice daily) - CO27 & CO33

Bristol - CO77

Edinburgh - CO37

Glasgow (twice daily) - CO17 & CO107

***Flying from London***

Gatwick (twice daily) - codeshares with Virgin but utilising Continental planes - CO19 & CO29

Heathrow - (twice daily) - codeshares with Virgin but utilising Virgin planes - VS001/CO4401 & VS17/CO4417

British Airways (3 times daily) BA 185, BA 187, BA 189

More info on:

http://www.continental.com (they're also having some sort of offer where you can have up to 3 months to pay for your flights - see the home page).

http://www.virginatlantic.com

http://www.ba.com

Pimpbot

Nobody has ever been able to make transatlantic flights viable from Stansted, which always surprised me. I think American were the last to try. I think an ex BA executive is starting a business class only service to New York via Stansted later this year.

Manc

Manchester has a shedload of transatlantic flights too.

cabritpop

Maybe you can get a holiday package tour of Bristol

CaliforniaBride

Great info but we're tied into American Airlines. They used to do flights from Birmingham to LA but they stopped doing them.

hayley82

Thanks for that, my parents live in Cornwall so going to Bristol from Newark would be alot better for me (I'd miss out the lovely National Express!) Must check the prices, need to go back...again!

clydegirl

I've always used the Continental flights out of Glasgow.Never had any complaints with them.They are always packed.You always get at least one man with a kilt ,makes me feel right at home.

Bob

Surprised me to...

Personally prefer flying into Heathrow myself...great duty free shopping...and it's only an hour away from home

woodsey

Have to say I like Heathrow too, fly down from Manchester then on to LA, have only changed in the US once (in Chicago) and I won't ever do it again, horrid experience, at least they're organised in Heathrow. If your flight coming in is late at least they'll have someone waiting to rush you through passport control & security, here they don't give a toss if you miss your flight.
Heard a rumour a while ago that BA were going to start direct flights to LA from Manchester but no such luck yet.

smeg

Recently I've been able to get direct from Boston to Manchester, which has been great ... my parents are in North Wales and my Brother in Manchester itself. Flying into Heathrow then getting up there was always *horrible*

Looking at prices to go back over at the end of August (USC Fiancee is going to Oxford for a month on work, I'm tagging on a week at the end, so dates are fixed) and we'll be flying into Heathrow ... shocking prices Can't get much lower than $800

woodsey

have to agree about the prices, I've just paid $6500 for 5 return economy flights with BA in July, we were tied to BA as two of my daughters friends are coming over for three weeks and they are flying home on their own and not all airlines offer the escort service..back in April I paid $10,000 for 4 return economy class tickets with BA to fly us all home for my Grandfathers funeral, afterwards I found out they are supposed to offer lower price tickets for circumstances such as these so I've complained, they are looking into it and will hopefully refund us some money.

NC Penguin

I wonder if all the flights between British regional airports and the US fly year round? Maybe some services only run during the summer (peak season)?



NC Pengun

neil

The flight from Bristol was probably busy because they sent out info to their OnePass members and they had a promotion so it's probably busy due to the cheaper prices.

clydegirl

Glasgow is year round.Very popular flight as there is not much choice on transatlantic flights from there.Sure beats having to fly to london first.

Bob

Tried indirect flights via Montreal? There normally a couple hundred cheaper...