Palmair

Advantages: Personal and friendly service, local airport, nice food, short check-in times
Disadvantages: Limited choice of destinations and departure days

...Palmair European is an independent airline which flies solely out of Bournemouth Airport in Dorset. It is a small airline, owned by Bath Travel – a family run travel agent with branches across the South Coast of England. Amazingly, Palmair only operates one aircraft – a Boeing 737 – but still manages to give an excellent service with a very personal touch. Despite its small stature, Palmair recently achieved an amazing third place in the “Holiday Which” best airline survey, beating its British competitors hands down, and therefore gaining the title of best British airline – no mean feat for such a small airline. During the summer, the airline operates 14 flights a week between Bournemouth and seven different European destinations. These include Malaga, Faro, Corfu and Mallorca. Clearly, due to the single aircraft, you can only... Read review

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Advantages: Small size means much less chance of delays
Disadvantages: Small, facilities somewhat limited

...takes about 30 minutes and costs 2 quid each way, but as we landed early and only had hand luggage, that would have meant an 80-minute wait for a bus! Access to the airport is simple enough by car, just follow the M3 towards Southampton, turn onto the M27 and follow the signs to Bournemouth International, and there is plenty of short and long-term parking available near the terminal building. There is a taxi rank outside the terminal, and the trip to Bournemouth station will set you back about 12 quid. The number of destinations available from Bournemouth is gradually increasing – Ryanair introduced the Dublin and Hahn routes this year, while there are also regular flights to Tenerife, Lanzarote, the Channel Islands and (bizarrely) Dubrovnik, while Palmair offer day trips to Helsinki, Krakow and other exotic locations. More routes... Read review

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Advantages: modern, well-eqipped hotel, near the beach
Disadvantages: no good lamps beside the beds

...to February, the British community is the most numerous ethnic group with nearly 400 members, followed by the Germans. [Guess who puts towels on the deckchairs? (answer below)] Then there are also some French and Italian guests as well as a few Spaniards from the mainland and the odd Japanese family. Nearly all the British guests come with the travel organisation SAGA (from 50 to seemingly dead), only four didn´t, they came with Palmair, and are thus a homogenous group, the Germans come with 6 different travel organisations and are not, they don´t know each other and aren´t interested in socialising with their fellow countrymen. The SAGA peeps come only in these four months, the rest of the year the guests are more mixed age-wise and nationality-wise, in the summer months there are many families; the hotel prides itself in entertaining... Read review

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