Full Name: Malta International Airport

IATA Code: MLA

Address: Malta International Airport plc
Luqa LQA 4000

Terminal Plan: Here

Distance from City: 5km

Day Trip Possible: Yes

Passenger Numbers: 2,900,000 (2009)

Closest Alternative: Palermo

Overview: One of the most southern destinations (excluding the Canary Islands) Malta has not only developed into a holiday destination but a very popular place for emigration. No surprise that due to the extremely warm climate and great scenery. The airport has kept up with this and now provides for over 3 million passengers a year and with a new extension opened, the airport has received the 2010 award for Airport of the Year (1-5 million passenger category), something where there is a lot of competition. Not that this came cheap; at a cost of apprx 1.5bn USD, this certainly rivals the construction cost of facilities of much larger airports.

Getting there: Malta is a relatively small island and as such there is not too much problem accessing the airport. Bus 8 runs to Valletta which stops on places along the way, and is cheap and very frequent particularly at cheap hours. The more up-market hotels will have complementary transfer services to cover this short distance so it may be worth checking in advance. Taxis and car hire are also freely available at the airport.

General Tips: The airport is modern and clean and has the distinction of actually remaining sympathetic to the original designs instead of becoming an all glass fronted affair – this is patently obvious from outside. Inside is a different matter however, and it’s easy to see why the airport is so highly regarded. The airport is very well organised with little in the way of queues, well lit and also a really good range of shops and places to eat both in arrivals and departures. Other services such as travel agents, bank machines, pharmacy, luggage drop, internet services (there is free wi-fi but terminals are provided); the complement of services would not look out of place in an airport twice it’s size.

Budget Travellers Guide: Malta is a good route to take if there are sales on, unfortunately there is good demand for here all year around and as such good fares might be hard to find and may even be cheaper by splitting your route to a closer destination. Air Malta dominates many of the routes, and offers flights to many of the larger cities in Europe and many more on a seasonal basis. Ryanair serve Bari, Billund, Bologna, Bournemouth [ends 30 October], Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh, Girona, Krakow, Leeds/Bradford, London Luton, Madrid, Marseille, Pisa, Seville, Stockholm-Skavsta, Trapani, Valencia, Venice-Treviso, and Easyjet a few less, serving Belfast-International [begins 15 February 2011], Liverpool, London Gatwick, Manchester, Milan-Malpensa, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Rome-Fiumicino.

Need a pre-paid card to dodge Ryanair fees? We’ve teamed up with FairFX to offer you their anywhere card – get one for FREE (usually £9.95 for loading under £500). Any currency – anywhere – it’s ideal for everyone.

Full Name: Pablo Ruiz Picasso Airport

IATA Code: AGP

Address: Avenida Comandante García Moratos/n.
29004 Málaga

Distance from City: 8km

Terminal Plan: Here

Day Trip Possible: Yes

Passenger Numbers: 12,000,000 (2009)

Closest Alternative: Granada, Jerez

Overview: The fourth largest airport in Spain, Malaga is a key airport for the airlines as it serves the very popular tourist resorts of Torremolinos and the Costa del Sol. The long-awaited new terminal has been completed and has opened in March 2010, giving the airport one of the most modern terminals in the country. Malaga is one of the few of the traditional holiday destinations that are served all-year around by the low-cost airlines. There are still further expansions due here with a second runway to be added which should further improve the turnaround times and variety of destination. With a promised capacity of 30 million passengers, there are exciting times ahead here.

Getting there: Located just 8km from Malaga, it is pretty easy to reach the nearby tourist resorts or Malaga itself. There are a variety of buses which serve the airport – Line 75 is the express version and has fewer stops on the way to Malaga. There is also a bus which serves Marbella. All buses leave from Terminal 3. It is also possible to access the airport via train, which leaves from the station near Terminal 2. Taxi would cost approximately 15 Euros dependent on time, or there is plenty of car hire. A new train station is being planned at the airport to make a transportation hub which should further improve options.

General Tips: All flights now depart from Terminal 3 which is directly next to the old Terminal 2, which instead of closing, will get a refurbishment. The airport is vast, and as you would expect from a new airport – is very clean and bright, with most facilities you would expect from a larger airport. The two terminals still serve the same departure piers – known as Pier B, C and D and at peak times you may face a long walk between gates. In common with many airports, buses may be used to transport to the terminal, even for the larger airlines. Malaga has what is supposedly the largest food hall in Europe with a massive range of places to eat and there are smaller places dotted around the airport. If you do get bored, the airport complex also has the National Aviation Museum. On the downside, do expect longer queues in the summertime, particularly with security.

Budget Travellers Guide: Fascinating place and relatively cheap to travel to out of season (not during the summer where it is particularly expensive especially on weekends). Long sector length from the UK make this a longer flight than the average. Great weather make it a good choice all the year around. Connections aplenty here: British Airways fly to Heathrow, Aer Lingus to Gatwick. Ryanair connect to most of their airports in the UK as well as their larger bases and many Spanish destinations; Easyjet serve three London airports (Luton, Gatwick, Stansted) as well as many other UK destinations. Many domestic destinations are served and during summer months there is even a flight by Delta to New York.

Need a pre-paid card to dodge Ryanair fees? We’ve teamed up with FairFX to offer you their anywhere card – get one for FREE (usually £9.95 for loading under £500). Any currency – anywhere – it’s ideal for everyone.

We’ve since speculated that the ages of the free or 1 EURO fares could be over – but this weekend there is a 3 GBP/EUR sale on, ostensibly to celebrate Ryanair’s new base in Seville. Certainly at this price, it’s the lowest we have seen them for a while and probably equal lowest this year. Compare that to 2008 or 2009, by which time we would have seen 4 or 5 free promotions.

That’s where the good news ends however, as the fares have one of the thinnest spread of routes available – with just 500,000 seats, and a good chunk of these would be available on UK-Dublin routes. But, if you’re flying one of these routes, you may get lucky. Travel in September:

Leeds Bradford to: Dublin, Knock, Nantes

Bristol to: Belfast, Knock, Limoges

Birmingham to: Derry, Dusseldorf (Weeze)

East Midlands to: Belfast, Knock, Dublin, Nantes, Dinard

Liverpool to: Belfast, Bremen, Cork, Dublin, Knock, Oslo Torp, Shannon

London Stansted to: Aarhus, Belfast, Billund, Bremen, Ciudad Real, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt Hahn, Glasgow Prestwick, Haugesund, Oslo Rygge, Oslo Torp, Stockholm Vasteras, Tours

Bournemouth to: Dublin

Edinburgh to: Brussels Charleroi, Hamburg Lubeck, Oslo Torp, Paris Beauvais, Poitiers

London Luton to: Brest, Kerry

Newcastle to: Oslo Rygge

Need a pre-paid card to dodge Ryanair fees? We’ve teamed up with FairFX to offer you their anywhere card – get one for FREE (usually £9.95 for loading under £500). Any currency – anywhere – it’s ideal for everyone.

Easyjet could be forced to change it’s name if more flights do not run on time. Stelios has given the airline an ultimatum that if things don’t improve within 90 days then the airline will be forced to rebrand itself as it only licences the ‘Easy’ brand.

Will this happen? Actually I think it’s just a bit of posturing and possibly a way of turning up the pressure. There is no doubt that the ‘Easy’ brand is particularly valuable and well known throughout Europe – but it’s not irreplaceable. I’d consider that the budget airline brands are all towards the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to brand equity and therefore even starting out as a generic brand would not be too detrimental as customers would still know who the former company was. This would be a different case altogther if a brand giant such as Coke had to start again.

Re-branding also gives the company further opportunities. They also own the ‘Go’ brand from the British Airways days but also could look into a merger with an existing airline and use their brand instead. Wizz look particularly interesting for many low-cost airlines. Not only are their business models similar (and hence easy to integrate), but for the most part the airlines have some synergies. Wizz has a big Eastern European bias, where most of the others do not, giving a combined potential larger route map with few overlaps. The ability to put more bases also broadens the options for future flights.

And then there is the ramifications for Sir Stelios. By a considerable margin, Easyjet is the most prominent and valuable of all the brands in the group and it’s loss would probably see Stelios known as ‘formerly of Easyjet’. The loss of the brand and subsequent royalties coming in would be significant.

What to do for the airline? It’s not as if they want to run flights late, but it looks as if though via poor management, they have had no choice. Either they should employ more crews or re-jiggle the schedules to a more realistic target (punctuality is judged by take-off time). Some of the turnarounds are not realistic and then there is a domino effect; one bad delay on the opening sector of the day would result in the rest of the day’s flights being late.

For passengers: if your flight is late, do not be afraid to ask for compensation. For flights involving the EU if your flight is delayed more than 3 hours, you are entitled to compensation of EUR 250 or EUR 400 (depending on distance) plus food, calls and accomodation (where appropriate). You should almost certainly write to them via recorded delivery; they will plead extraordinary circumstances – but it’s been heavily publicised that there is nothing ‘extraordinary’ about their delays. If you do have a legitimate case you should proceed all the way to court action; there is very little chance that Easyjet will want to come under more scrutiny and will settle beforehand.

Full Name: Maastricht Aachen Airport

IATA Code: MST

Address: PO Box 1
6199 ZG Maastricht Airport
The Netherlands

Distance from City: 5km

Terminal Plan: Here

Day Trip Possible: No

Passenger Numbers: 252,000 (2008)

Closest Alternatives: Eindhoven, Brussels Charleroi

Overview: Primarily what was a cargo airport (the second largest in the Netherlands), Maastricht also lies very close to the German and Belgian borders giving it a relatively large catchment area. With a large university and constant influx of tourists, the airport is well placed to benefit from any upturn in the economy;with many large cities surrounding it. Traffic here has grown steadily in the last couple of years and with the facilities including an ILS Cat III is also well equipped to deal with the latest aircraft.

Getting there: There is a public bus service (59) which serves both Maastricht and Sittard central stations for the short journey to the airport, making it pretty easy to also get the train to one of these stations. The airport is well located via road for travel via Netherlands, Belgium or Germany. Car hire and taxi services are also readily available at the airport.

General Tips: The airport is relatively new but the terminal features a slightly dated design with one main terminal building catering for both departures and arrivals on either side of the airport. There is a hotel and restaurant directly next to (but not attached), which makes it handy if you wish to stay there. There is a good range of facilities including a restaurant, viewing gallery, ATM machine. Past security it’s pretty good; a newsagent shop, duty free, snack bar before the gates. Unlikely to get crowded unless several flights happen to leave at once.

Budget Travellers Guide: A good choice of airport if cheap flights are available with cheap transfer to the nearby cities via the bus. Difficult to reach via anywhere in the UK with no Ryanair flights, with flights only to Alicante, Faro, Girona, Malaga, Pisa, Porto, Trapani and Reus. There used to be a KLM connection to Amsterdam (3 hours by train) but no more. The only other services here are Transavia (Malaga), Sky Airlines (Antalya) or Amsterdam Airlines (Ankara, Kayseri). If you wish to reach here from a different place, getting to Eindhoven or one of the Brussels airports and then taking the train is your best bet.

Need a pre-paid card to dodge Ryanair fees? We’ve teamed up with FairFX to offer you their anywhere card – get one for FREE (usually £9.95 for loading under £500). Any currency – anywhere – it’s ideal for everyone.

Looking at the search engine queries, there appears to be a lot of people asking this question, and for good reason too: Vatry Airport hardly deals with any passenger traffic, yet is marketed as Paris Vatry (Disney) by Ryanair. The reality is that the airport is some way from the Disney resort, so if you’re not hiring a car, you’ll need some way of getting there. Here are the best ways that we have found:

1) Private Transfer: There are many companies offering ‘private transfers’; essentially what these amount to is little more than a taxi service with a veichle appropriate to however many passengers you might have. The good news is that most now have websites and are in English; Google around for their pages – some may already be placing ads on our site. The cost of this is not cheap if you use this, but perhaps economical if you have several passengers.

2) Coach service: There is a little known ‘Paris Vatry Shuttle’ which is not well advertised on the airport website. This coach service is only available to airport passengers, so one would guess that it’s subsidised by the airport. The price is a reasonable 25 Euro return from the airport, considering the length of journey and the coach will stop at the following points:
Reims Train Station 
Vatry Airport
Chalons en Champagne Train Station
Cheyenne Hotel (Disney)
Disneyland Hotel (Disney)
New York Hotel (Disney)
Chessy Marne-la Vallee Station (Disney)
Santa Fe Hotel (Disney)
Sequoia Hotel (Disney)
Newport Bay Hotel (Disney)
Davy Crockett Ranch Hotel (Disney)

You can find a timetable at http://paris-disney-champagne.for-system.com/index_uk.aspx; do note all passengers need to have travelled via plane to Vatry, to underscore this, the bus only coincides with flight landings.

3) Train: You may want to consider if there is any difference in cost to take the train: particularly if you can get to London, Amsterdam, Brussels or Frankfurt for the TGV fast train. Disney has it’s own train station (the Marne la Vallee) which may mean you can cut out all the transfer problems by going via an airport with better connections. Even going via Paris CDG may save you some cash in the long run if time is factored in.

Full Name: Lodz Wladyslaw Reymont Airport

IATA Code: LCJ

Address: ul. Gen S Maczka 35,
Lodz, 94-238

Distance to City: 6km

Terminal Plan: Here 

Day Trip Possible: No

Passenger Numbers: 330,000 (2009)

Closest Alternatives: Wroclaw

Overview: With a new terminal that opened in 2005 and plans for more development, Lodz is an ambitious airport that serves Poland’s third largest city. Despite the airport’s size, there isn’t a great range of routes from here, with Ryanair dominating the airport thanks to withdrawals from other operators, and the fact that scheduled aircraft flights have been only available for just over 10 years. With the terminal operating close to capacity, a new terminal is now underway which will take the airport to around 3m pax/year, which will be easily enough to compete; expect plenty of routes to materialise should this happen.

Getting there: Bus is the simplest way to cover the short distance and buses 55 and 65 will get you to the Central station with a connection with a tram. The journey is cheap and quick and you should not have to allocate too much time for it.  There are also direct coach services to some of the larger cities in Poland (check timetable before travel). No train connection, although the buses do stop there. Car hire and taxi are also available at the airport.

General Tips: The new terminal was built in 2005 and is fairly smart and mostly glass fronted giving it a nice effect and replaces the older terminal.  However, it’s pretty small and you would guess the update would be on a far larger scale. Arrivals and departures are seperated on the same floor, arrivals to the left and to the right. Inside the airport is fairly stocked with facilities such as cash machine, newsagent and restaurant; not a great choice but sufficient for the number of passengers passing through.

Budget Travellers Guide: Fair value; one of the closer airport-city locations around. However, there are not much in the way of connections. Best reached from London Stansted (with a flight every day), Ryanair also fly to Dublin, Edinburgh, East Midlands and Shannon in varying frequencies but not more than four times a week. LOT (the Polish national airline) also have a flight to Warsaw (although it is convienient to take the train). Wizzair have a solitary flight to Dortmund but this is probably enough to give Ryanair a little food for thought.

Need a pre-paid card to dodge Ryanair fees? We’ve teamed up with FairFX to offer you their anywhere card – get one for FREE (usually £9.95 for loading under £500). Any currency – anywhere – it’s ideal for everyone.

Let’s make no bones about it, if you want computing on the move, a netbook is always going to be a better choice for you than a laptop. OK – the main downside is that the netbook was always underspecced compared to the laptop equivalent but as technology has improved in the recent year, you could consider this an indispensible purchase. The reasons are very practical; and what you should be looking for:

- Battery life: Most laptops have a top battery life of three hours (if that); some netbooks have battery life of up to 11 hours. In practical terms this means you could probably go for a weekend away and not bring your charger; whereas with a laptop you would have the worry of finding an available plug socket.

- Portablility: With some laptops busting the scales at 3kg+, this has a big impact on your hand luggage allowance (you wouldn’t want to put it in the hold). As well, the extra dimensions mean this may be a tricky item to fit. No such problem for the netbook, an average weight of 1.2kg and small footprint mean a typical model will easily fit into any bag.

- Cost: Prices on netbooks have been falling and it’s possible to pick one up now for less than £200; in many cases, cheaper than a mobile phone. This kind of price makes a netbook not quite disposable, but if you lost it, it would much cheaper to replace it. From a security point of view, a shiny Ipad is much more likely to be a target rather than a small netbook which is underspecced.

- Connectivity: All netbooks feature wi-fi which means should you be able to hook up to a network you’ll have the perfect workstation. Many netbooks are also coming with a SIM card slot as well, meaning that you can pick up the internet anywhere you go, thanks to your service provider. By contrast, you’ll at the very least need a seperate USB dongle to access the internet on a laptop.

Given this, our recommendations (see our link to compare prices)

Battery Life: ASUS 1005PE - ASUS have been a solid brand in the netbook scene. Their latest models with the ‘E’ – standing for extended are renowned for their superb battery life with no compromise on performance. With some of the older models now retailing under £200, there are some real bargains to be had.

Portability: Toshiba Portege R600 – one of the lightest portable computers out there at only 820g – you’ll hardly believe it’s a computer. The downside to this is a compromise in performance with a battery life of under four hours – low by today’s standards. If you can tolerate an extra pound, do see the HP Mini 2133, which comes with a smaller screen but better spec.

Cost: Second-hand you’ll probably pick up a bargain, but it’s really a minefield; just one costly repair may see the economics of the used item disappear. For new items there are always plenty of sales on; two models that are commonly discounted are the MSI Wind U600 or Samsung N130. Both should be easily available for under £200.

Connectivity: As time goes on, the likelyhood of the SIM card slot gets more likely with the newer models, but many older models do not have the facility. If you need this; do double check before purchase that the item definately does have it; one that does is the Compaq Mini 311C. Remember, if planning to use a lot of data do make sure your cell plan doesn’t overcharge.

Full Name: Lleida-Alguaire Airport

IATA Code: ILD (non-IATA)

Address: 25125 Alguaire, CT, Spain

Distance from City: 15km

Terminal Plan: Here

Day Trip Possible: No

Passenger Numbers: N/A

Closest Alternative: Reus, Zaragoza

Overview: One of the newest airports anywhere with the opening in 2010, Lleida ostensibly serves the Catalonia region but by Ryanair standards is only a little further out from Barcelona than Reus and Girona. Undoubtedly this will pick up traffic thanks to the excellent facility plus discounts offered to airlines even if it is in the middle of Zaragoza and the Barcelona airports. It is rumoured that a new railway line will run through the airport, which will make it an extremely viable alternative.

Getting there: The airport is situated around 15km north of Lleida itself. There are bus services which stop at bus and train station which co-incide with the flight times and a 6 EUR return (7 on weekends), this is fairly good value. There is also a shuttle bus from Barcelona, but with this trip taking 2.5 hours and costing 35 EUR return, it’s hard to see the value of this (as all destinations are served from either Barcelona, Reus or Girona). Car hire and taxi are also available in the airport but may not be open outside of the operating flight hours.

General Tips: The airport really is of fantastic design. A small single story building with the control tower at the centre with the roof arching up to meet it – nothing else like it currently. The airport is extremely bright inside and has a high standard of finish, with free wifi – we hope this sets a trend for the future. Unfortunately there is not much in the way as shops – there is a bar/restaurant but little else apart from vending machines. Adequate seating is available throughout the airport. Unlikely to be many queues for passport control or luggage at this stage yet. Departures area is fairly small and some good scheduling will be needed to maximise passenger numbers here.

Budget Travellers Guide: The airport is only served from Milan Bergamo and Hahn but if you can connect from here you are likely to pick up a good deal; much like Ciudad Real you would guess that that the airlines are well subsidised here, allowing discounts to be made. With a trip to Lledia priced pretty cheaply, this offers good value. On the downside, connections are really limited here. Vueling offer Palma and Paris Charles de Gaulle, with Iberia offering Ibiza and Menorca, but no other international routes available.

Need a pre-paid card to dodge Ryanair fees? We’ve teamed up with FairFX to offer you their anywhere card – get one for FREE (usually £9.95 for loading under £500). Any currency – anywhere – it’s ideal for everyone.

Taxi rip-0ffs are one of the most common scams you’ll see when you go abroad. Charging over the odds for a taxi-ride is one of the easiest sidelines an unscrupulous local could make, simply because most people wouldn’t know the difference or have the stomach to argue back in a foreign language.

The scale of rip-off varies tremendously. From a padding of the fare for a few dollars, to a massive hikes, perhaps five or ten times what a local would pay. The likelyhood is greater in countries where the currencies is not familiar (so not the Euro, or Dollar), so price comparisons are more difficult. Want to avoid being ripped off? Here some tips to minimise that chance.

1) Research Price in Advance: Clearly, you won’t be able to do this for all of your journeys, but you should be able to ascertain the cost of the most common used journies by tourists, perhaps from the main city to the airport. This should give you a good barometer to the rough cost of trips. Google the information, or Tripadvisor usually has good discussions of this.

2) Arrange Price in Advance: It’s better to arrange the price in advance, as you then know what you have to pay. It is daft getting into a cab and then paying at the destination, as then the driver could charge you anything he likes, with a lot of hassle if you choose to dispute this. If taking a taxi with a meter, then you won’t be able to do this, but you could ask for an estimation.

3) Don’t Accept the First Offer: Particularly if you are accosted at the airport or on the street. The first offer for these type of negotiations are always too high, almost a check to see if you are a mark or not. If you know a rough value for your trip (see tip 1) then you’ll be in a good place to negotiate the real cost. Obviously your negotiations will be dictated with how badly you need to go and the availibilty of alternatives.

4) Are there alternatives? Do use a bit of research to find out if you really need the taxi. There may be viable alternatives; such as train, bus or shuttle. Some people I know used a taxi to the airport from their hotel even when the hotel offered a free shuttle simply because they didn’t ask.

5) Use recommendations: If a city is rife with taxi scams (and most are not), you will be able to pick up recommendations from guide books such as Lonely Planet or internet guides – even at the airport, the information desk may be happy to recommend a certain firm. Do value these opinions highly; it may be even worth paying a little more as there is a greater chance of safety.

6) Avoid looking like a tourist: Sometimes, in fact, most of the time, this will be impossible, you’ll be betrayed as soon as you open your mouth. But you can avoid looking like a rich, dumb tourist. Being polite, smiling and friendly will always get you a long way. Don’t show off wads of cash, or excessive valuables.

7) Travel with a local: Often the best way. They already know the language and the price to pay, and who to use and who to avoid.

Got more tips or want to share stories? Do let us know.