ThomsonFly (AmsterdamSchiphol - Coventry)

Not having much money to spend and needing to get too and fro across the English Channel between England and the Netherlands, budget airlines are a necessary evil. In the past I've flown with EasyJet & Ryanair (the latter of whom are also reviewed on this site). Needing to be in the West Midlands it made sense to fly into Coventry airport with Thomson who list those well-known locations of Doncaster and Bournemouth as their other two home airports! Birmingham International is still rather an expensive port of arrival despite the efforts of BMI Baby.

Amsterdam Schiphol is a well-laid out and very well sign-posted airport though as the world's biggest single-terminal airport, one wonders just how much further you will have to walk to reach your departure gate. A sign telling me that my gate was 15 minutes walk was rather discouraging, though I found that to be a rather generous estimate and the automated walkways ease the strain on your feet.

With typical Dutch efficiency my flight departed promptly and though there was a lack of personality from them, the customs staff were encouragingly thorough in their checks - a factor that no traveller will resent in the wake of recent terror attacks.

The aircraft was compact though comfortable and an hour isn't long enough to feel cramped and begin to want more leg-room. I am always struck by the terribly superficial presentation of flight staff who, apart from being requisitely blond, always appear to have so very many layers of make-up on that they must need a chisel to remove it! It was lovely to be welcomed aboard by two genuinely warm and friendly English brunettes. Thomson is a budget airline, so apart from an attempt to sell refreshments from a trolley there is little in the way of in-flight service to comment on.

Coventry airport is little more than a warehouse that has been furnished with some rather uncomfortable fixed seating and a poor attempt at a coffee bar in one corner. There is a distinct lack of any natural light inside and no view of the runway is offered. All of this became depressingly clear as I endured a two hour delay when making my return flight.

Links to Coventry airport are in woefully short supply with a bus service linking it to the city station just once an hour. Arriving in Coventry at 6:20 I was gutted to find that I'd missed the bus by 10 minutes and had to pay £10 for a taxi in order to make the required check-in time. Arriving there had been cheaper as an entrepreneurial taxi-driver had approached a group of us stood at the bus stop and provided the drive to the station for just £2 each amongst six of us.

Apparently Thomson have a rather small fleet and the knock-on effect of delays at one of their Mediterranean destinations earlier in the day was the reason for our delay. I wasn't impressed as I was banking on arriving at Schiphol before the final train to get me home that night.

Even after being called to the gate (if you can call what appeared to be an enlarged garden conservatory a 'gate') there was a further delay of nearly 30 minutes. My 7:35 flight boarded at 9:30. Five minutes later, after the standard 'don't panic and make use of the oxygen masks and life jackets' spiel, we had moved to the edge of the runway when the plane began to reverse and parked itself into a service bay. The sight of engineers fussing around the engines under the wing is never a comforting sight when you are about to take-off! The Captain's voice explaining that the engineers were taking a precautionary look into the source of some fluid that had been spotted leaking from an engine was further cause for concern and his announcement 20 minutes later that the engineers were taking longer than expected because they had had to send for manuals was really quite worrying! We finally got airborne at 10pm and I spent my flight weighing up my options upon arrival in Schiphol knowing that I would miss the last train by at least 30 minutes.

I'm afraid that friendly service and a ridiculously cheap price just aren't enough to console me after spending the most awful night lying on the floor of Schiphol airport trying to get a few hours sleep before the 5am train.

Unless I absolutely have to, I will not be flying with ThomsonFly in the future. A night coach to Stansted may be a nuisance, but I'd rather sleep in the comfort of a coach and then fly with Ryanair direct to the nearest airport to my destination than on the floor at Schiphol. Maybe you get what you pay for, but I won't be paying for this service again.