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A tale of two airports

RogerS

RogerS

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And off to pastures new
We recently flew out from Bristol to CDG (Charles de Gaulle) and returned early this morning.

CDG - clean, light, airy. Corridors and toilets spotless. Food superb. Coffee excellent. Not a single 'bar' in sight although there were civilised areas to partake of an alcoholic beverage

Bristol - Outbound 5am - dirty and grubby. Bars rammed with drunks. Signs all the way through the airport saying that drunken and aggressive behaviour not acceptable. Food dire. Coffee - yuk. Returning flight found the WC's with non-functional flushes. Those that did were full to the brim with blockages. Maybe the indigenous knuckle-draggers don't know what that button is for. Welcome to Britain. What an impact to give anyone visiting the UK? :confused: Basically Bristol Airport is a sh****le. Embarassed to be British.
 
That's is a little "apples-and-pears", don't you think, Roger? CdG is the main airport for the capital city of France. Bristol is a small regional airport. It's perhaps a little like comparing Heathrow with Southend airport.
 
Yeah, me, too, these days. i was looking for an angry emoji above.
 
Mike G said:
That's is a little "apples-and-pears", don't you think, Roger? CdG is the main airport for the capital city of France. Bristol is a small regional airport. It's perhaps a little like comparing Heathrow with Southend airport.
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I'm not so sure, Mike. I've used La Rochelle a couple of times. Lovely place.
 
Our local region airports, Caen Carpiquet and Deauville are much smaller that Bristol and my experience of both is nothing like as described above.
 
Mike G said:
That's is a little "apples-and-pears", don't you think, Roger? CdG is the main airport for the capital city of France. Bristol is a small regional airport. It's perhaps a little like comparing Heathrow with Southend airport.
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Are you suggesting that clean toilets are exclusive to main airports ?
 
It's not just size, it's the type of flights and the prevailing passenger demographics. For most of the UK's smaller regional airports, the majority of their flights are cheap package holiday charters. On average, those flights attract a very different type of passenger than the global hub airports - one that makes it much harder to maintain a clean environment and pleasant atmosphere, but also doesn't care as much about those things. The behaviour that gives British tourists their deserved bad name throughout Europe starts the moment they leave home, it doesn't wait until they get to their destination, and that means the airports they fly from suffer as well.
 
Whilst I can’t comment on what Bristol Airport is like today as I haven’t flown from there since pre-COVID, I think that it’s worth pointing out that it’s not exactly a small regional airport. Passenger numbers recently were 10.5 million a year. The other airports mentioned above had the following numbers:

Deauville 80k
Carpiquet 300k
Southend 300k
La Rochelle 240k.

However, as Stephen pointed out, it’s the demographic of the passengers. The airport is a regional hub for EasyJet, Ryanair and TUI offering cheap flights to holiday destinations and caters for a large part of the West Country and South Wales.
 
Regardless of size I would have thought that any self-respecting airport would ensure that toilets were not full of s**t
 
My daughter had just come in and I asked her about her experience of using Bristol at 5.00 am some 4 weeks ago. She said it was clean enough, toilets included, but was absolutely heaving so was glad to get out asap.
 
Roger, with No3 at Bath reading Engineering for five years, we regularly (maybe once every three months) flew in and out of Brizzle, as it was the nearest airport to Bath. That was 15 years ago, BEFORE THE RENOVATION. We never saw an out-of-use Kharsie. Tim settled in Bristol, and again, we commuted to see him about three times a year, for five more years. Now, I find it more convenient to migrate NuuKassel to Brizzle by air as it is faster than train or car. Never found a shocker.

I think amigo, you encountered an unusual confluence of circumstances; I have been, and remain, quietly impressed by Bristol's 'rebirth' and continued growth. Drunks going on a plane? Check the departure board for a Tui flight - or six. Newcastle had one such jamboree recently and I take my hat off to the cabin staff 'serving'(??) on them. Having the patience of Job and twin-barrel diplomacy must be in the job descriptions.
 
Macquarie are currently buying Bristol Airport. Given their great track record in looking after Thames Water I’m sure drainage and plumbing will be quickly sorted. :unsure::oops:
 
MartinF said:
My daughter had just come in and I asked her about her experience of using Bristol at 5.00 am some 4 weeks ago. She said it was clean enough, toilets included, but was absolutely heaving so was glad to get out asap.
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My bad for conflating two issues.

I accept that it is an airport predominantly used by t hose in the Twilight Zone.

My main gripe is the abysmal state of the toilets in Arrivals. To get off a plane, head for the toilets and find most are unusable - male and female - is simply unacceptable. It gets better the further you go through Arrivals and so by the time you get to Baggage Reclaim they are OK. So …Bristol Airport management….fix it.
 
A few years ago I flew into and out of GDG many times. On arrival the plane was always held for a while on a taxiway before getting to a gate. The terminal was always crowded. On the return it was suit jacket off, belt off, shoes off for security. Then more often than not I would be selected for an additional security check probably to get their equality stats up as I was an older white male.

To top it all when flying to South Africa on KLM from Amsterdam business class my flight from Manchester was delayed, held on taxiway after boarding, and we were not told of a problem until we were on board, due to high winds at Amsterdam and again over the North Sea so I missed my 9:00 am flight. The customer I was meeting at Amsterdam also missed the flight as the plane from Brussels had had an intruder on overnight and had to be checked. We were transferred to a 24:00 Air France flight from CDG. So we thought it would be better to get there early in case there were more problems. At CDG we were shown into the waiting room. Hard chairs and tables no refreshments and a 12 hour wait. We could access the air side shops but that was about it.

My short time as an international traveller put me off flying for ever. Not due to the flights but the messing around at either end and generally being treated as cattle and an inconvenience to the staff. There were the occasional exceptions but not many.

I used Newcastle airport a lot at the time and that was very good and my daughters tell me Liverpool is also very good.
 
I used to fly a great deal for business. Mostly to the US. But flew somewhere in Europe, Africa North and South America pretty much weekly at one point. Post 9/11 it was always a trial and I avoid it now. No excuse for an airport having dirty facilities.
 
My wife and I use Bristol Airport regularly (most recently a couple of weeks ago) - I have to say that it is improving continuously - the new parking / bus interchange etc. is a big improvement - I don't expect that size of airport to compete with the largest, but we have generally found it not too busy / food is average but okay and the toilets have been fine. The new scanners are good so security tends to be fast and people we have chatted to have been helpful. Our most recent Fri. eve. flight to Edinburgh we went from parking car to at the gate waiting for the plane in about 20 minutes which seems reasonably efficient...
 
Roger

Out of interest, which coffee shop did you visit? According to the airport website, airside there’s Starbucks, Soho Coffee Company and Burger King. I’ve never liked the Starbucks coffee and am no fan of Burger King so that would only leave Soho should I use the airport again in the near future.

As for the toilets, how easy was it to report the problem to the airport staff? If you found it difficult, earlier arrivals may have found the same.
 
MartinF said:
My daughter had just come in and I asked her about her experience of using Bristol at 5.00 am some 4 weeks ago. She said it was clean enough, toilets included, but was absolutely heaving so was glad to get out asap.
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That was outbound then? I’m talking inbound toilets
 
akirk said:
Our most recent Fri. eve. flight to Edinburgh we went from parking car to at the gate waiting for the plane in about 20 minutes which seems reasonably efficient...
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I’m sorry Alistair but I’m finding it hard to give any credence to that statement. You parked your car..in the multi-storey I assume. Locked it. Walked …bloody fast … to security…no queues…Friday night ? 😏…no bags obviously…swift run to the gate…which hadn’t shut given the closeness to departure….mmmmmm?
 
RogerS said:
I’m sorry Alistair but I’m finding it hard to give any credence to that statement. You parked your car..in the multi-storey I assume. Locked it. Walked …bloody fast … to security…no queues…Friday night ? 😏…no bags obviously…swift run to the gate…which hadn’t shut given the closeness to departure….mmmmmm?
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not sure why that is considered difficult...
parked by the lifts and a lift was there to go to the concourse level
5 minutes and we were able to drop off a check-in bag - and there was almost no queue - couple of others and several automatic machines to print the barcode - bag on scales, sticker printed, around handle and drop on conveyor belt - bag vanishes...
Gentle walk up to security where there was a wait of about two people - we were through in just over 5 minutes
then wandered off to the gate which was listed an hour or so before departure, so hardly a need to run...

my point being - the process can be very slick...

having said that - back in July on returning from Athens we turned up at the bag drop to be told to come back in 3 hours - 2 hours before the flight as we couldn't drop the bags off early... or would we prefer an earlier flight - yes please. Chap came around the counter and walked us (ran us) through security and to the gate where the plane was already boarding - it is remarkably quick with a staff security badge helping you jump all queues - from drop off by taxi to on the plane in under 20 minutes...

of course - if you want slick and quick - travel private jet... ;)
 
Rog, some of our African airports sound better than Bristol.
I used the following regularly, not large:

Maputo - Mozambique
Harare - Zimbabwe
Matsapha - Eswatini (Swaziland) - still there but replaced by new large airport 35km from Manzini
Kruger Intnl. - Nel Spruit
Palaborwa - North East of country
Tzaneen - you give your drinks order while boarding and collect in Pietersburg :D.
Pietersburg - North
Lanseria - West of J'burg - has grown from small plane to a fairly large airport
 
Bristol was built as a fighter aerodrome (RAF Lulsgate Bottom). Post the Battle of Britain it became a training airfield, principally for instrument flying, as the mist up there was not insignificant. Little has changed since, least of all the facilities.

That said, my best experience there, undoubtedly, was very soon after the 'new' terminal opened. The restaurant upstairs on the original terminal was retained as a venue, and we booked it for my son's seventh birthday party (I think it was 7th!). No only could the children watch the aeroplanes, but the event included a visit to the fire station to see the huge airport fire trucks and meet the firemen. I have a cherished pic of a little boy peeping out from under a bright yellow helmet, sitting up in the driver's cab.

Also, if you fly across the pond, you can catch an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, where you can clear US customs and immigration, before the transatlantic leg, and arrival in the US is thus to a domestic terminal, with no clearing anything at the far end. We used to fly into LAX that way - all very civilised, apart from the first bit.

It's unlikely Bristol will improve much, since it's location, hemmed in by SSSIs of the Mendips and a significant escarpment at the wheels-up end of the runway, mean a longer runway is out of the question. Furthermore, it's highly unlikely that the road infrastructure will be improved either, for the same reasons. Nowadays most of the A38 is jammed solid inbound to Bristol, most of the time.

If anyone ever wanted evidence of corruption in the planning process, it's that Filton, with rail and motorway connections, including to South Wales, was closed and had its huge runway (extended for the Brabazon) ripped up ASAP, whereas Lulsgate remains a blot on the landscape.

en.wikipedia.org

Bristol Airport - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
akirk said:
not sure why that is considered difficult...
parked by the lifts and a lift was there to go to the concourse level
5 minutes and we were able to drop off a check-in bag - and there was almost no queue - couple of others and several automatic machines to print the barcode - bag on scales, sticker printed, around handle and drop on conveyor belt - bag vanishes...
Gentle walk up to security where there was a wait of about two people - we were through in just over 5 minutes
then wandered off to the gate which was listed an hour or so before departure, so hardly a need to run...

my point being - the process can be very slick...

having said that - back in July on returning from Athens we turned up at the bag drop to be told to come back in 3 hours - 2 hours before the flight as we couldn't drop the bags off early... or would we prefer an earlier flight - yes please. Chap came around the counter and walked us (ran us) through security and to the gate where the plane was already boarding - it is remarkably quick with a staff security badge helping you jump all queues - from drop off by taxi to on the plane in under 20 minutes...

of course - if you want slick and quick - travel private jet... ;)
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I’m curious. What day of the year was this and what time?
 
akirk said:
Friday 5th of September 2025
about 1.50pm
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That will explain it then. If you compare the number of outbound flights in the hour 6-7am when we departed to 1-2pm when you were, the number of flights in the early morning timeframe is 100% more
 
RogerS said:
Regardless of size I would have thought that any self-respecting airport would ensure that toilets were not full of s**t
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What are small regional french airports like, I bet they are also like the big french airports, nicely presented because standards should not be selective. It comes down to culture, just look at all the litter and crap screwn along british roads and you should not be surprised what you find anywhere.
 
The two I have used, see post #5 above, are as you suspect. Whether the satellite airports around Paris, where the low cost airlines fly in and out of, are the same I know not.
 
Eric the Viking said:
Bristol was built as a fighter aerodrome (RAF Lulsgate Bottom). Post the Battle of Britain it became a training airfield, principally for instrument flying, as .............................whereas Lulsgate remains a blot on the landscape.

en.wikipedia.org

Bristol Airport - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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I might have realised you'd know EtV. (y)

My experience of Dublin-U.S.A. is that the transplanted Customs Bods in Dublin Airport were an accusatory, gruff bunch - like their piles were playing up something rotten, and we were just "a bunch of dumb hicks". I don't know if they came like that as a direct consequence of "Training School" or whether it was just Murrican superciliousness, but I encountered the same abrasive attitude flying Lima to Miami, both ways. Their imperious - and impervious - demeanour contrasted sharply with the courteous, listening, glad-to-help, Staff of the Dublin Airport Authority (and the Emirates Staff when flying to India).
 
SamQ aka Ah! Q! said:
I might have realised you'd know EtV. (y)

My experience of Dublin-U.S.A. is that the transplanted Customs Bods in Dublin Airport were an accusatory, gruff bunch - like their piles were playing up something rotten, and we were just "a bunch of dumb hicks". I don't know if they came like that as a direct consequence of "Training School" or whether it was just Murrican superciliousness, but I encountered the same abrasive attitude flying Lima to Miami, both ways. Their imperious - and impervious - demeanour contrasted sharply with the courteous, listening, glad-to-help, Staff of the Dublin Airport Authority (and the Emirates Staff when flying to India).
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Whereabouts did you fly to in India, Sam ?
 
Spectric said:
It comes down to culture, just look at all the litter and crap screwn along british roads and you should not be surprised what you find anywhere.
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Here in rural France, I have seen someone deliberately dropping litter just twice, in the nearly 3 years we have lived here. It just doesn't happen, not even cigarette ends, and lots of people still smoke here.
It's just a different attitude to the local environment (unless you include the farmers who are happy to set fire to piles of tyres on the motorways in order to protest about this, that, t'other or which...).
S
 
Following up on EtV’s link to the history of Bristol Airport, as the Wikipedia article says, the original one was at Whitchurch, 3 miles south of the city centre. It was built by Bristol City Council and in use until 1957. As it was surrounded by houses, it was impossible to extend the runway so the Council bought what had been RAF Lulsgate Bottom instead. The Council owned the airport until 1994 when, due to restrictions on local authorities, it was partly privatised before being fully privatised in 2001.

Filton Aerodrome was privately owned from day 1. Owned firstly by The British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, which became Bristol Aircraft Company, it finally ended up in the ownership of British Aerospace. Although there were some advantages in turning the aerodrome into Bristol Airport, by the time it was sold off for development, it was surrounded on 3 sides by housing and the large shopping complex at Cribbs Causeway. The site is now being turned into a huge housing development. Although I agree with EtV that the road to Lulsgate is quite often jammed solid, the traffic in and around Filton and on the nearby M5 is far from free flowing. What it would be like if the new airport had been built there I hate to think.

Regarding the use of Lulsgate as a fighter aerodrome in WW 2, according to Wikipedia, this was only for a very short time; most of the time it was used for training of one sort or another. At the same time, Whitchurch spent the war primarily involved with civilian flights and Air Transport Auxiliary air ferry work. Filton had a chequered history hosting fighter squadrons, air ferry operations and flight training schools amongst others.
 
I remember L.A. airport. We had to take our luggage off the plane, cart it around for three hours then take it back to the same plane. I, my mother and three year old daughter walked for what seemed like foreever behind two airport employees who for some reason reminded of the posters for Of Mice and Men - one was short and small, the other about 6' 6", built like a brick ****house. The tall one leaned down slightly and said in a broad drawl "seriously, do you know anyone who likes f***ing place?:LOL:
 
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