~Where is it?~
Bournemouth airport (BOH) is located in the south of England about 5 miles north of the seaside resort of Bournemouth. It is located near the village of Hurn on heath land just west of the A338 and north of the B3026, it may also be know by its old name of Hurn airport.
~Getting ... Read review
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Advantages: You'll probably never have delays Disadvantages: Car parking, the terminal buildings and staff
~Where is it?~
Bournemouth airport (BOH) is located in the south of England about 5 miles north of the seaside resort of Bournemouth. It is located near the village of Hurn on heath land just west of the A338 and north of the B3026, it may also be know by its old name of Hurn airport.
~Getting to BOH~
By Car - With the M27 Junction 1 only 15 miles away you would suspect that getting to BOH is easy. Well it normally is, ... ...all the way down into deepest darkest Dorset from the M27 can turn into a car park. After the A31 it is only a few miles down the A338 before you take the Hurn exit, turn right at the traffic signals, left at the next roundabout onto the B3026 and finally right into BOH's entrance.
On summer days it could take you around a hour or so to travel the 15 miles from the M27 to Hurn. So If you come from afar expect to be delayed within 10 miles ... more
~Where is it?~ Bournemouth airport (BOH) is located in the south of England about 5 miles north of the seaside resort of Bournemouth. It is located near the village of Hurn on heath land just west of the A338 and north of the B3026, it may also be know by its old name of Hurn airport.
~Getting to BOH~ By Car - With the M27 Junction 1 only 15 miles away you would suspect that getting to BOH is easy. Well it normally is, but in the summer months the A31 which leads you all the way down into deepest darkest Dorset from the M27 can turn into a car park. After the A31 it is only a few miles down the A338 before you take the Hurn exit, turn right at the traffic signals, left at the next roundabout onto the B3026 and finally right into BOH's entrance. On summer days it could take you around a hour or so to travel the 15 miles from the M27 to Hurn. So If you come from afar expect to be delayed within 10 miles of your goal. As for the parking I'll give that a miss and start on something else.
By Train - If a car is not the best then the railway is worse. The nearest train station as the crow flies is Pokesdown Railway Station at only 3 and a half miles away, but using pokey Pokesdown would do you no favours. It's not so much a station more a couple of platforms in a cutting surrounded by a suburb of Bournemouth.
The best alternative would be to use Christchurch station as at least there are a few taxi's around and it is only slightly further at 4 miles. You would think that your best bet is to use the main Bournemouth station, at 5 miles away from BOH, but you would be wrong. This is not much further away but it will set you back more money than you would think. This is due to the crossing of borough boundaries, Bournemouth to Christchurch and your friendly taxi driver will be forced to tax you extra for the privilege.
By Bus - For your service Wilts and Dorset bus company run 3 services to BOH (which they call Hurn Airport), however the 3 services only translates to one bus route and the 111 only runs in term time (not Saturdays or school holidays). Its route will only bring you from Christchurch railway station or Highcliffe (east of Bournemouth). This bus service is effectively a 'Hail and Ride' service for locals. This is okay for locals but what about getting from BOH?
Well that is it, there are no buses to Bournemouth. So next time you want to get to BOH from Bournemouth thank Wilts and Dorset for providing one bus route. If you want to get to Bournemouth itself from BOH, then it's private transport or a taxi.
~Car parking at BOH~ Right I'm back on the car parking subject again. Let us assume that you are arriving at BOH, you made to the entrance and you are driving your car in the entrance. Now normally you drive to a parking space, park the car and the transfer your luggage to the terminal. At BOH this is not the wisest of ideas and most regular users know this is a bad idea as transferring your luggage is a pain.
So everyone in the know tries to drop of luggage and passengers at the 'Drop off Zone' (DOZ) on the left about 300 yards from the main road and right in front of the terminal. It is normally a bun fight to get one of the half a dozen spaces while other cars are double parking and blocking people in. Not a good situation at peak times.
Once you've unloaded your passengers and extracted your car from the DOZ mess you will need to park it somewhere. On the left after the DOZ is the short term parking used for people picking up passengers. To the right of the access road is the main car park area for long term parking so it is only a short walk to the terminal. Grab your ticket from the automatic barrier and for around £36 per week (2006 prices) you can park your nice shiny car in a recently upgraded car park.
Short walk? Upgraded?
I hear you say, and you thought I was about to rubbish it all. Well the car parks at BOH are awful to the extreme that my brain is spitting swear words that I won't type here!
Why so bad, Cad?
The price you pay may be cheaper than say parking at a major airport, but at least at a major airport you get lovely a bituminous surface with drainage gullies, kerbs, marked parking bays, decent lighting and bus or luggage trolleys nearby. At BOH you get a gravelled surface, wooden barriers, no marked bays, poor lighting and no trolleys within the parking area. You can view it either way, a nice rustic car park blending in with the countryside or a horrible mess of wood and gravel prone to flooding.
The trolley issue is the worst of all and the reason for the fighting at the DOZ. Have you ever tried pushing a fully laden luggage trolley across a gravel car park? No? Well if you have you will remember next time to use the DOZ as it so much easier! In fairness to BOH they have made some of the central roads tarmac, but the majority of the site is still gravel and for the money it is very poor value.
~The terminal~ So now your are at the airport terminal and it is a small terminal. Unlike a popular BBC TV time travelling machine which is small on the outside and large on the inside BOH is a SIDRAT. That is 'Space Inside is Diminished in a Rubbish Airport Terminal'.
The two doors at the front slide open only slowing and hesitantly. They don't want to let you in and these are right in front of the DOZ mess, they should be better. Worse, the doors to the left will let you in and the doors on the right will let you out. It is a shame no one bothers to put better sensors on the doors or leave them open, as you will always get tangled with someone walking through the door coming the wrong way!
Once inside you will see the four or five check-in desks in front of you, however you have to walk all the way around to the right of the desks, past the toilets, the newsagents, the entrance to security and a café. It sounds like a long way, but it is only about thirty paces in an arc, BOH check-in is small. You are now behind and to the right of the check-in desks facing the entrance and you will have a queue in front of you snaking along a line of metal barriers with the expanding straps.
The check-in desks are basic and normally have two attendants per flight, never anymore or less. The staff are provided by a company called 'Servisair' a play on words if there ever was one. You'd think that you were getting 'service' and that they were good in the 'air'. Well I have to report that the service item doesn't exist and as they are on the ground the only air that you'll see is contained between the attendants ears!
They are the dopiest bunch of cretins you will ever meet. I have travelled out of BOH a handful of times and on various flights. During these experiences I have been threatened with 'Security' because I sighed too loudly and was too slow in moving a luggage item off the belt. Another time the check-in closed as we got there and opened up down the line so we had to re-queue.
Another problem with BOH's check-in is that you will not be able to get away with any 'free' excess baggage not even half a kilo, it is really frowned up for reasons I'll explain later in 'Up, tiddly up'. Overall the check-in at BOH is not a nice check-in and is it a not nice experience.
~Security~ The newsagent and the café are good for nothing the newsagent only sells papers, magazines, some books and tobacco. The café has only enough room for about ten people to sit down and is about this size of a small kitchen. Your best bet after check-in is to go straight through Security as the security at BOH is very ponderous and slow.
The queue to the security area can be quite long even backing out into the check in area. Once inside you snake around some more low quality metal stands and straps, the room has a low ceiling and in the summer it can get very hot and airless in here. It smells of stale sweat, bad breath, dirty carpets and is not really a nice place to be.
The security is run by about a dozen guards using with only one scanner working at anytime. The metal detectors sensitivity must be set really high as the last time, both myself and Mrs Cad were frisked. We think that the following items set the sensors off, an under-wired bra, button fly jeans and a buckle on a belt. So some very common clothing items then!
As an experience then BOH is much slower than other airports and is the worst security area I have been through for stinky smells. With security cleared you would think that you could enjoy a beer at the bar on the other side, wouldn't you?
~Departure Lounge~ You won't find much joy here with hard plastic seats in a crummy wooden built extension, a duty-free you can't move in, a grubby cafe and a bar the size of a school desk. Once again this is after a recent refurbishment which has seemingly decreased the already small size of the departure lounge.
After the trials of the Check-in and Security the bar is one place I go just for a quick drink, but the selection at BOH is small and it is not cheap. Last time I looked the choice of draughts is limited to Guinness, Cafferey's, Stella Artois and a cider. Bottled drinks are available and there is an average selection of them, but it will cost you a bit, with a drink for two coming in at around a fiver or more.
The café come restaurant is one to avoid unless you want to re-visit your meal mid-flight and the duty-free is really laughable. Sitting waiting for your flight is okay unless there are two large flights waiting to go at the same time as seats will quickly disappear.
As departure lounge's go BOH is pretty poor, I've worked and slept in better temporary construction accommodation than this permanent building. When it is busy there is no room for anyone to move around, the new café smells greasy, the duty-free is taking up valuable space, the bar is under stocked and the whole building gets hot and airless in warm weather. It's time to get on the crate! (That will be the plane I always call it a 'crate' when you fly cattle class.)
~Boarding~ There are about four gates at BOH, however they are almost on top of each other. For instance there is about ten metres between gates 1 and 2. As per usual there is normally a bun-fight of some description if you are flying with a cheap airline of Irish extraction.
Fighting your way out of the wooden doors and you have to walk out to the crate. It is not far, but the next stage will be difficult if you have trouble walking or are in a wheelchair. As you are on the ground there are two sets of steps one at the front of the crate and one to the rear. A thin bit of string and some cones are all that will separate you from the big round spinning thing that could chop you into little bits. I avoid the engines and board my crate thinking the worst is over.
~Up, tiddly up~ As BOH is on a tight site for land, you will normally take off from east to west. If you plane is a big one such as one of the newer Boeing medium haul crates you will start right at the far east end of the runway. Your pilot will stand on the brakes, line up, hit full power and wait a second or two before releasing the brakes. The reason for this is not clear for the passenger in the plane, but much clearer if you drive along the B3026 to the west of the airport.
If you get in your car and head west from the airport you will see a set of traffic lights. With these on 'red' you will stop and wait not knowing why as there is no road junction here. Suddenly a jet packed full of holidaymakers will rip just over the hedgerows from right to left belching jet fumes across the road.
You see BOH has been extended to take bigger crates and can even take a 'light fuel' unloaded 747 (cargo version only), but the price for this is that the western end of the runway end is close to the B3026. This is the reason why you will not get any leeway with your baggage allowance and 'free' excess baggage will not occur here unlike other airports with longer runways. At BOH they like to know almost every gram of luggage.
Meanwhile the passengers are oblivious to the closeness of the crate to the road as they take off. They will however feel the next part which is a hard bank to the right as the crate climbs away from the airport. This is due to the crate trying to avoid the popular residential areas of Bournemouth, Poole and Wimbourne Minster. Indeed all planes taking off from BOH in the westerly direction have to turn north and then go onto their journey after that. If your heading north its okay as you only do a 90 degree turn, but it is very uncomfortable if you are heading south.
~Creating a crater out of the crate~ If taking off at BOH is not much fun landing isn't great either. Every time I land at BOH I know it and so do most of the other passengers. This time your crate will bring you in from the east. It doesn't matter what the wind direction is this is the only way I've land at BOH. The only time to worry is if the wind is behind the crate. This has the effect of adding airspeed to the crate and it will push it down the runway, so your pilot needs to be good. Unfortunately our last flight was with the allocation free airline of Irish extraction and our pilot was probably very green and naive. He had already crunched us into to Girona airport and he did a worse job at BOH.
I knew we were in for a heavy landing again as the crate was fidgeting around like a toddler trying to get out of it's pushchair. Flaps down, flaps up, engine slow, engine fast, right a bit, left bit. Oh look there's the runway underneath us, crate goes up, hangs a bit, a bit more, probably about a third of the way down the runway by now. The crate lurches downwards and I feel my stomach go light.
BANG!
All three wheels hit the ground at the same time and are instantly squealing to stop, reverse thrust kicks in and we are still motoring along the runway. I look up and the terminal building is behind my left shoulder. Luckily Captain Crash has everything under control and swings the crate hard left to get us off the runway before we run out of black stuff. Everyone lurches to the left, I hear a poor woman somewhere in front sobbing. Captain Crash slides the crate to a skidding stop outside the terminal and everyone breaths a huge sigh of relief. A landing at BOH will always be a bumpy affair and now has the inevitable title in our family of:
'Worst flight landing ever'!
~Passport Control~ Disembarking is similar to boarding in that you have to get off via the steps onto a windswept rainy day in spring. You realise that you will get wet, more so if you are the last off and have to queue in the rain to the passport control. Again you walk across the tarmac and into small building and wait to be called forward and have your passport checked. Another ten paces after this and you are in baggage reclaim.
~Baggage Reclaim~ Another small building, but at least it has a concrete floor and solid walls. I think that this is part of the old terminal building as it is old although it's in average condition. It also does not have the stale sweaty smell about it of the security or departure lounge. There is only one baggage conveyer which comes in from the left and snakes around a bit. Baggage reclaim is actually one of the better parts of BOH, but that said it is still only average. Normally flights come in separately and your are not all queuing up around the conveyer, but most times you will have to fight through to get to your baggage. There are toilets in this building which can get busy quickly and are they are not the cleanest.
Once you have your baggage you go through customs and outside of the building. The exit from customs brings you out away from the main entrance which is good, but if you have parked your car it is a little further to walk than when you arrived.
~Leaving BOH~ Car park payment is via automated ticket machines, these machines are located in the following locations. One is in the short term parking area near the exit, one is near the terminal entrance and (my memory fails here) there could be a few more dotted around the long term car parks. Payment can be with cash or card, put your ticket in (you did keep it didn't you?) and pay the amount. As with arriving I tend to keep someone with the baggage near the terminal, fetch the car, use the ticket at the barrier to get out, pick up the baggage and my travel companions then leave.
~Conclusion~ BOH is a poor provincial airport, it is advantage is that your flight will never get delayed unless there is a problem elsewhere. There are no other advantages to flying out of BOH even if you are local to it like I am. It is small, smelly, hot, airless and service at any level is appalling. Check-in is tiny and staffed by airheads, security is slow and over zealous, the departure lounge is a mess of wasted space, hard plastic seats, a greasy café and an expensive bar. Taking off or landing is uncomfortable and in some cases a frightening experience. Finally the car park is the worst piece of designing I ever come across. It is cheap, nasty, poorly drained and in need of a serious and immediate make over.
If you are looking for an example of provincial airports with cheap airlines and good facilities, then BOH is not the place. Indeed many small airports I have been too have poor facilities and service in comparison to the bigger commercial airports. Some people think that a large super airport should be built near London such as the proposals for Cliffe. I on the other hand have a better idea.
Turn London in a big airport! You have the M25 as a taxiway or car park (it is after all a car park already), put five or six runways north to south and turn the City of London into one big terminal building. Think about it, Soho the ultimate departure lounge! If you think I'm mad then I consider the people that advocate small squalid provincial airports to be as equally insane if not more so.
I may use BOH again, but I would never recommend it to a friend or to you as I knew what BOH stands for. Behold the Odious Hell!
Advantages: Small size means much less chance of delays Disadvantages: Small, facilities somewhat limited
How best to describe Bournemouth International Airport in one word? Tiny. That just about covers it. This is easily the smallest, most compact airport I have ever used, and probably the quietest as well. The principal advantage of smaller airports is that the likelihood of delays is much lower than at a busy international hub – there are simply less planes in the air and consequently a reduced chance of air traffic control problems. Bournemouth ... ...there (mid-September), the airport only had to deal with a total of 10 flights a day!
I flew to Bournemouth with Ryanair from (Frankfurt) Hahn, and have to admit to being a bit surprised at my first sight of the main terminal building. Seen from the runway, it’s basically an extended bungalow, a single-storey building with a few people milling around outside it. This turns out be a sort of beer garden, a small terrace outside the airport bar ...
JVL 19.09.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Bournemouth(Hurn) Airport - Dorset/England
Advantages: Friendly, few delays! Disadvantages: Can be expensive
Bournemouth International Airport is a very friendly place to fly from. The airport is very clean and quite small. This makes it easy to find your way around.
Since the expansion, the airport now has six check-in desks immediately after the main entrance. Each check-in desk is well labelled so there is no chance of queuing in the wrong lane for half an hour only to find you are in the line for Jersey instead of Malaga.
There are very clean toilet ... ...about three urinals and a condom machine with the choice of three different condoms!
There is a medium sized restaurant which serves an outstanding all day breakfast and other hot and cold meals. The restaurant is on the expensive side however with the breakfast coming in at about £4.80.
Since the expansion, there is now a new bar with plenty of seats and a large glass window looking out to the aircraft. This can act as a viewing area but it isn't ...
rich_lufc 25.05.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Bournemouth(Hurn) Airport - Dorset/England
Advantages: Small airport, very friendly and unlikely to be delayed Disadvantages: Lack of Destinations and Small duty free shop
We used Bournemouth International Airport for our recent holiday to Majorca in October 2005.
The airport is relatively small, there are about six check in desks immediately in front of you as you walk through the door and the queues are never too long.
We have been on many flights from Bournemouth Airport and so far have never been delayed at all, in fact our most recent flight took off about 20 minutes earlier than scheduled which was great, we ... ...(although it's not really worth visiting anyway as it is so small).
There is a restaurant at the airport, a small shop that sells magazines and newspapers etc, a bureau de change and a travel agent.
The baggage handlers are absolutely brilliant, all of the luggage was being off loaded from the plane before everyone had even vacated the plane and congregated in the baggage reclaim.
There is car parking available (long and short stay), although ...
LenaLoo 08.11.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Bournemouth(Hurn) Airport - Dorset/England
