flights for 09

[Liz]

Hi Kathy -welcome to the board F'raid I can't answer you re Jet2.com ...think the only advice would be book your flights with a credit card ..then at least you are covered if they do go pop !

[pda]

Jet2 are ATOL registered so if they go under then the CAA should pay out. Pay with credit card too though.

I've just got my money back from credit card for XL. ;D
Month after I had to pay Tom Cooks £100 more for the same flights.

[JulieBB]

If anyone hears of flights from Birmingham, East Mildands, or Luton could they please post the info on to this board.

XL used to run a weekley wednesday morning flight from b'ham which was really convenient so don't really want to go to Gatwick or Manchester unless really necessary

[carol]

Hi Julie, welcome, there is a Thomsonfly flight from Birmingham at 7am but when we last looked it was over £900 for two of us !! The price just kept increasing since XL went bust, I could not find anything from East Midlands that arrived anywhere near the time we needed it to catch the ferry, we gave up in the end and have booked Gatwick again for just under £600

[daisy]

Oct 13, 2008 23:15:51 GMT kathy said:

hi  this is the 1st time ive used a site !  the jet2.com flights are £1000 cheaper than thos cook for us in August (5 of us!)Are  they at all risky re going bust, or is it better to go thos cook to be on the safe side? any advice welcome!I havent been back to Halki for 17 years I cant wait!staying at Villa Fiona, it looks great!

Villa Fiona is absolutely beautiful we went and looked around when we were in Halki in September.
Would love to stay there one day.

[Deleted]

Kathy, there is not basis -at this time- for thinking Jet2 may go bust. After events of the past few weeks of course anything could happen. However, Jet 2 may have only been flying as such for the last 5 years but in fact have been around for longer that many of the charter airlines which have gone to the wall. They are an extension of Channel express and have been in operation for 30 years. It is early days yet, I would let the dust settle for a while. Incidentally, you will see many changes after 17 years, not all bad! Happy days.

[JulieBB]

Hi and thanks for the feedback. The trouble with the Thomson flight is that they will not sell seats for a three week holiday.

[carol]

Hi Julie, lucky lucky you going for three weeks. ;DThese flights from regional airports are a real pain at the moment, if there are any at all they all go late afternoon, no good if you are determined to get there the same day, I really thought by going independantly next year we would be going from Birmingham which is so much easier for us but it just was not cost effective.

[steven]

;D We have just booked our 3 week flights with Thomas Cook from East Midlands after a conversation with Lynne of Nissia holidays, we have paid 277.96 each and we fly at 2.20pm, the airport is 25minutes from our home.
Nissia have arrange for us to stay in a small hotel in Kamiros Scala for the evening which includes breakfast at at a very good rate,
We then travel over to Halki on the early daytrip boat and should be there by 11.20am on Thursday
This beats getting up at 2am to travel to Gatwick only to arrive in Halki at around 6/7pm very tired and washed out.
So all in all a great way to travel from a regional airport, and then on the return journey our son will pick us up and we will be home without any stress

[carol]

Pleased to hear you have got sorted out Steven, you are lucky you have East Midlands so close, we are only half an hour from Cardiif airport but the flight is about 6pm now where it used to be 6am which was great for a few years. We will drive to Gatwick the night before and stay like we did this year, it is a pain really but we are meeting up with Daisy and Fergie and travelling together so that will more than make up for it ;D

[kathy]

We booked jet 2 for August. The basic cost was £950, with a few extras ( inc. v.i.p. lounge!) £1400 for 5, peak season which seems pretty good compared to some of the prices ive seen. Its the Leeds 9am flight - does this leave us easily in time for the boat (assuming no delays!) We are also doing the hand luggage only thing. Suprisingly, when we tried it going to Italy this year - our 3 teenage girls managed it better than me!( we only went for 5 days though )

[carol]

Hi Kathy, you should be fine for time, this year the first ferry left at approx 5pm and the DG/TC one left about 6-6.30pm depending on flight times, with any luck you will have time for a relaxing drink at Kamiros Scala ;D

[muriman]

Steven, is the hotel you mention at Kamira Scala the larger of the two tavernas next to the harbour there (on the right looking towards the sea)? Somewhere I thought I'd filed details of its name and address but can't lay hands on it - could be useful to know for independent travellers. Your arrangement is one way of getting round the problem of flight times from many airports (Cardiff, Bristol etc) although from some airports flight times are in the evening and really too late even for your arrangement.

Kathy, you may have seen my posting a while ago on the transfers thread, about hand baggage only. It can be done, even by daughters! One disadvantage is the long walk carrying the hand baggage at Gatwick, but at Leeds/Bradford that's not much of a problem. The trick is to be disciplined about surprisingly heavy stuff like footwear, suntan cream and toothpaste and the need to keep to 100 ml containers - or buy the toiletry stuff airside after passing through security.

As Carol has said, your 9.00 flight time is fine for ferry catching. Indeed, you may have several hours at KS. There will almost certainly be quite a number of TC passengers for Halki on the 10.05 from Gatwick, and probably a few others on the later Edinburgh flight. In September, our supposed 0750 TC flight from LGW finally departed at about 11.30 (in a replacement aircraft) and I thought it might well be too late for a ferry that day; but both the TC-chartered ferry and the Nissia-chartered ferry waited till about 6.45 pm for people on the delayed Gatwick flight and the Edinburgh flight (the last one of the day for which ferries normally waited last summer), much to the understandable frustration of those who had arrived at KS several hours earlier. (Next summer there is a Monarch flight from Edinburgh scheduled to arrive Rhodes at 1645, suggesting a ferry departure time for any passengers on that flight no earlier than about 1800 allowing for baggage reclaim and transfer time).

It would seem sensible for one ferry to leave earlier and one later, but the chartering arrangements don't seem to cater for that, and even if it were to happen next summer at least one ferry will (or perhaps I ought to say "should") be there for you.

[carol]

It appears that so far the DG/TC flight for next year is at 08.50am which is much more sensible than last years 10.10am so hopefully the ferry will leave at a more reasonable time as long as there are no delays to Gatwick flights or otherwise, all being well we should all arrive in time for pre dinner drinks !!!