GB Airways

...flight was actually operated by GB Airways as a franchise under the BA Banner.

WHO ARE GB AIRWAYS?
Starting life in the 1930’s as a privately owned firm, Gibraltar Airways, British European Airways (now BA) took a 49% stake in the company in the 1940s and relinquished it in 1995 when GB Airways became a BA franchise operator.

With 900 employees, 13 planes, (10 Airbus 320’s and 3 Airbus 321’s), all sporting the ...
...chosen departure airport, which, for GB Airways will be Gatwick, Heathrow or Manchester (from Summer 2005). However, once on the site, you can book any flight through BA and associated partners. GBs full list of destinations can be found on their website.

Once you know where you want to go, enter the number of travellers, (up to a maximum of 6), the type of flight, i.e. economy, club class, business etc and away you go.

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Some of you will know from my ranting in the “Buyer Beware” category that I had a bad experience with First Choice before even setting foot in the airport. Despite a major argument and complaint resulting in transfers back to our original flights (in a manner that suggested we should be grateful), for me, at least, the damage had been done.

Perusal of the BA website established that they ‘appeared’ to have laid on additional flights to Arrecife on our chosen travel dates, at reasonable times, and within an acceptable price range. Further investigation established that the flight was actually operated by GB Airways as a franchise under the BA Banner.

WHO ARE GB AIRWAYS?
Starting life in the 1930’s as a privately owned firm, Gibraltar Airways, British European Airways (now BA) took a 49% stake in the company in the 1940s and relinquished it in 1995 when GB Airways became a BA franchise operator.

With 900 employees, 13 planes, (10 Airbus 320’s and 3 Airbus 321’s), all sporting the BA Livery, they fly to 29 European and North African destinations (including Gibraltar) from Gatwick, Heathrow and their new base at Manchester (Summer 2005).

Yet, amazingly, until about two months ago, I had never actually heard of them. You can visit their site at www.gbairways.co.uk, although for bookings you will be redirected to www.britishairways.com.

BOOKING
This really is as easy as “ABC”; you select your chosen departure airport, which, for GB Airways will be Gatwick, Heathrow or Manchester (from Summer 2005). However, once on the site, you can book any flight through BA and associated partners. GBs full list of destinations can be found on their website.

Once you know where you want to go, enter the number of travellers, (up to a maximum of 6), the type of flight, i.e. economy, club class, business etc and away you go.

The website will provide you with travel dates and prices for 7 days either side of you chosen travel dates, this is done in a far clearer way than the EasyJet site used to, where I' ve heard a number of horror stories of people inadvertently booking the wrong flights (EasyJets presentation has now changed to something similar to BA). It is also really useful for comparing prices, and if you can be slightly flexible over your travel dates, then this system is useful, and lowest prices are displayed for each travel date within the 15 day period; Prices are graded by a 6 colour code scheme, with yellow being the lowest and purple being the highest, if on a budget, those to watch out for are the yellow and light green. You will also do well to remember that prices are per one-way trip and do NOT include tax, although you will be given an indication at the outset what the tax charges are likely to be.

Once you have selected your preferred dates of travel, you will then be shown the available flights, times and appropriate prices for each date. Be aware that the price that you have been shown will be the lowest for that day, and you may discover there are several flights on any one day ranging in price substantially. For our outbound trip to Lanzarote, there were two choices, one for £65, the other £436 and only two hours apart.

One other thing to note is that prices change frequently UP and DOWN. The following day, the £436 flight had dropped to £140 and then two days later was up over £500.

Once you have chosen your flights you will be directed to a window showing your travel itinerary and total price. You will also, if available, be offered the chance to upgrade to club class, either or both ways, for a sizeable charge of course.

Flights with GB Airways (and other British Airways services) can be booked up to 350 days in advance. It is also worth mentioning that many of the cheaper flights have a no refund / change policy, unlike airlines such as FlyBE and MyTravel Lite who allow changes up to a couple of hours before departure for a charge of £25 for each change, plus payment of any difference in flight prices. We did check GB Airways for our trip to Alicante next summer, but the “no change / no refund” policy made up book with an alternative carrier with greater flexibility.

Despite not having a BA Credit card, I did not encounter any credit card booking charges.

If you book through their call-centre, you will incur a £15 surcharge to on-line prices.

SO WHAT DO YOU GET FOR YOUR MONEY?
Over and above a flight? We had tickets, although I believe BA, in common with many of its competitors, is moving towards full e-ticketing.

From the UK, at selected airports, you get the chance to check in on-line up to 12 hours before your flight (24 hours if you are a BA Executive member). This worked superbly for us. We checked in on-line around 1am, selected the seats we wanted from the plane plan, printed out the details and left for the airport. There is however a disclaimer on the print out that selected seat may be changed at by the airline at check-in.

On arrival at Gatwick North some 5 hours later, we deposited our bags in the fast drop channel, and then we were free to enjoy the many shops, bars and restaurants (although no business area or wireless internet access) of the North Terminal.

For those who chose not to check in on-line, you can check in from 10pm the night before, or from 5am in the morning, there are also self service check in kiosks for those with hand luggage.

RETURN JOURNEY
Flying back from Arrecife, we didn’t have the luxury of being able to check in on-line, however, unlike many scheduled airlines on short haul flights, the desks were open 3 hours ahead of departure. Check in was pleasant and painless, and there was none of the 200 odd passengers chuntering off the bus and pushing for queue space, although we were travelling at a relatively quiet time returning, had we have been in between Christmas and new year the story may have been different.

We did, having booked in early, get extra leg room seats on both journeys at no extra charge.

THE FLIGHT
Ciao did me proud with a couple of ops on GB Airways before I booked, so we had an idea what to expect. The plane, an Airbus 321 was clearly new, and the seats, while appearing to be leather, were more likely to be hard wearing PVC and blue in colour. The seats were comfortable even for my ample frame, (far better than EasyJet) and leg-room was obviously excellent, although if you aren’t lucky enough to get extra leg-room seats, leg pitch is 31” for Economy (proudly known as World Traveller) and 34” for Club class. As with most planes the seats recline, and also have a movable headrest which kept my 6’ 2” other half happy; one of his biggest complaints usually on planes is that he is too tall for the seat.

Drinks and meals were provided at no extra charge, with the exception of Champagne at £4 a bottle. Drinks were served with complementary pretzels and the gin was flowing outbound, and the orange juice on the way home.

The meal on the outbound journey was Lamb Moussaka and mash potato, with bread roll, spring water, cheese and crackers, profiteroles and chocolate sauce. Despite initial impressions and the fact that I rarely, if ever, eat lamb, it was very tasty.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the return meal, which was some form of Thai Chicken with noodles, the customary bread roll, cheese and crackers, spring water, and a chocolate mousse. We did have a little play with it, but in all honesty, it was awful, and had I have been paying for it, I would not have been a happy bunny.

I must confess I wasn’t expecting entertainment on the flight. However, Club Class get a whole range of Sky Digital Channels, where as us “el cheapo World Travellers” got a trial film, namely, “The Sharks Tale” on both journeys. GB Airways, in common with Thomson flights (formerly Britannia), Thomson Fly and JMC charge £3 for headsets, something that, for a scheduled airline, did surprise me. That said, the headphones are of good quality and work perfectly well with our laptops and MP3 players, so shouldn’t go to waste.

There were 3 toilets on the plane (2 at the back and one at the front), and they were far sweeter smelling than those on EasyJet and ThomsonFly planes, although us "el-cheapo" passengers were banned from using the one at the front because we weren't permitted to walk through the Club Class section of the plane.

TIMEKEEPING
Quite often when I am in airports with BA flights, I hear of them being delayed and this made me a little nervous. We didn’t encounter any problems on our departure from Gatwick, and the thanks to a strong tail wind, we completed the journey in 3 hours 14 minutes, yet still didn’t seem to get us out of the airport any quicker.

The return journey however, was a different story. I checked from the hotel an hour after the flights scheduled departure from Gatwick only to discover that one minute the passengers were boarding, and the next there was a great big “DELAYED” sign against the flight, a bad omen? On check in at Arrecife there was no mention of the delay, and thanks to the lack of Internet facilities at the airport, a swift call to the UK established that the flight was just under 2 hours late leaving Gatwick. An hour of this was made up thanks to the tail winds coming down, and in fairness, despite the crew making the most of the only EU duty free tax haven, the turnaround was quick, making us an hour late leaving Arrecife.

The head wind however made the flight around 4 hours coming back. That said, as we were driving back from Gatwick on what was anticipated to be one of the busiest travel days of the year, this did not worry us too much, as it gave time for the M25 rush hour to clear. The traffic however was extremely busy, suggesting that many more people are taking advantage of travelling at night, and possibly to beat the predicted snow, it’s a pity the motorway service stations didn’t recognise this and keep their outlets open a little longer.

LUGGAGE
You may have noticed earlier that I mentioned the flexibility of check-in at Gatwick; this nearly didn’t work in our favour when collecting our luggage, hence worth mentioning separately. The entire luggage came off the carousel except one of our suitcases; I was all ready to get back on the next flight to the UK, when thanks to Martins almost fluent Spanish, we managed to establish that the case had arrived on an earlier flight. It was a relief to get it back, but the fact that it was correctly labelled, means, in reality, it could have ended up at any one of a myriad of destinations.

SUMMARY
For £173 each, free drinks and food and swift check in I would definitely give GB Airways 5 stars; unfortunately for them, the fact that one of my suitcases could have been stolen through early arrival, or literally ended up on the other side of the world, plus their no change policy on tickets loses them one star, if BA handlers can’t get it right, it doesn’t bode well for other airlines and those on connecting flights.

Would I use them again? Without hesitation, it is something of a disadvantage that they don’t fly from anywhere nearer home, but who knows, maybe as they continue to expand they will start flights from Cardiff, Bristol or Birmingham will have to watch this space.

The fact that they are now travelling to destinations previously under the monopoly of the Charter airlines, makes them less hassle, more comfortable and comparable on price, providing buyers are prepared to be just a little flexible on their travel dates and times.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED with caution recommended on reading the small print on changes and refunds

For more details:

www.gbwairways.co.uk or www.britishairways.com
 

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