So where the Hell is London Airport?

Yet again the touchy subject of airport names has resurfaced.

At what point does the name of an airport stop being a place indicator and become a wilful misdirection?

The naming by travel companies, Ryan Air are much cited (Vienna East is Bratislava!!!, wrong country Paddy), for destinations which are in fact miles from where you actually want to land, has been a growing trend over the last few years. Poor schmuck Ted, Alice and the five kids land at what they thought was Barcelona and find themselves at Reus or Girona, both an hour and a half from their intended destination.

Now this common sleight of hand, whilst not exactly laudable, can be in part excused by the fact Edward and brood might be disappointed, but they only paid about 15 quid to fly to Spain, and of course, if they’d read the literature they would have figured this trick out before they booked, plus the airline is a business. If you want to land in Spain after a champagne breakfast and a head massage you can, but for more like £1500 than £15.

What is inexcusable is the latest insidious trick being perpetrated, not just by private companies struggling through the recession, but by local authorities, who, after years of disassociating themselves with the Metropolis, suddenly want to appear as though they are, in fact, two streets from Piccadilly with Pearly Queens eating jellied eels on every corner.

The latest crew to perpetrate this cynical con are the owners of Oxford Airport, that well known transit point for Tower Bridge. Backed by the local council and the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce the airstrip has transmogrified into “London Oxford Airport”. This they say “will attract more visitors”. Yes. It probably will. More visitors who will be very p***sed off when they find out where they’ve landed.

You can see Oxford’s point. They’re only 62 miles from the City, and they’ll point out to anyone who’ll listen, London Ashford is 73 miles from Town so not that bad, nah, nah.

Ashford will tell you that they are “in London” because the rail links are good.

What? The links from Cape Canaveral to the moon are the best available but it’s not a peninsula made of green cheese!

Oxfords argument is even more choice. When asked about the Kidlington situated airport’s non existent rail links to London, came the answer, “Rail links aren’t a problem, most travellers are business passengers, many with drivers to collect them”.

Really? So what happened to all those “new visitors” you just told us would be flooding in like misdirected lemmings? Answer came there none.

Here, in case you’re interested are the actual distances from London for all its “orbital” airports. So far that is, Aberdeen airport is suffering from the credit crunch I hear and after all's said and done it’s only about an hour or so from London. By plane that is.

London City nine miles (15km)

London Heathrow 18 miles (29km)

London Gatwick 30 miles (48km)

London Luton 34 miles (55km)

London Stansted 43 miles (69km)

London Southend 43 miles (69km)

London Oxford 62 miles (100km)

And last but not least : - London Ashford 73 miles (117km)!!!

Coming to London? Best bring your walking boots folks.

Comments

[Wotchit321]

'London' Southend is the one that always got me. Not only was there no proper link from that airport to the capital, you'd have to get a bus from the airport to Southend itself just to get a train to London! It'd be quicker to fly to Greece than to do that journey! Luckily, no one flys there anyway, so the town was never inundated with confused foreign types. Maybe 'London' Oxford should learn from Southend's example, a rebrand like this makes feck all difference if your facilities are crap anyway.

[Ships Mate]

Aye, cunning to the core. Those pesky tourists will never know... And never come back either!

[Captain P]

Furthest airport from the City whose name it bears?..............

The winner (so far) is "Oslo Torp" (actually Sandefjord Airport) at 120 kilometres from Oslo (unless anyone knows one even further out...)