Two years since we've travelled transatlantic and today I looked at flight availability

[Earlybird]

.......I am astounded by how expensive the flights are, and how few options exist.

It seems the airlines dealt with the economic downturn by slashing routes and number of flights. In some cases, direct flights to secondary US cities simply don't exist any longer.

With limited availability, high prices, small seats, bad food, intense security screening, etc, it really is becoming more difficult and unpleasant to fly internationally......and I used to look forward to the journey!

Anyone else noticed the same?

The flights to USA with Virgin are the same price now that they were 2 years ago. Cant fault them as an airline at all. We have flown to LA and SF and always enjoy the flights.

Hmm - it may be that I travel to a US destination that cannot be reached via a direct flight from London.

In the past, i have usually connected through Atlanta or Cincinnati. It appears that Cincinnati no longer has direct flights into/out of London. And Atlanta appears to only have one direct flight a day (on Delta), when they previously had 3 or 4 (can't remember which) that ran daily to/from London.

It is definitely easier to choose which flights to take (because there is only one now!), but am afraid that means it will be packed. And there are no longer choices about departure times, which is certainly less convenient.

Think BA also fly direct into Atlanta.

I have seen price increases in the last few years. There is also now an increase in air passenger duty and other costs which has a knock on effect on the cost of the airfare (sometimes these charge can amount to a third of the overall cost of the flight).

I fly a lot to the States and prices have most definately gone up (as have fecking taxes). I am currently looking at flights in March, which is traditionally a cheap time of year, and they cost as much as I used to pay in May/June! I fly to Chicago on AA who are crap but I have airmiles... The last flight I took (with a 3 month old) was cancelled with no explanation and we got re-routed via Dallas on a totally packed flight. I am contemplating flying on my tod with 10 month DS in MArch but not looking forward to it. Mainly due to the awful connection in Heathrow. I hate Heathrow

Atttila (good to see a familiar name from the 'old' days) - I'll check directly on the BA website, but the multiple carrier site i'm using to research flights shows there are no Atlanta/London flights on BA.

The only way I could fly BA is by using ridiculous routing, such as: london-Manchester-Chicago-my city, or London-Dublin-Chicago-my city. And, to add insult to injury, the price is $500 more per ticket than Delta.....

raedrenn - I've also looked into American Airlines (who again, are much more expensive than Delta). Again, there is ludicrous routing: London-Dallas-my city (which is not far from Atlanta).....so, flying time is much longer than it needs to be and the geography makes no sense.

If I am willing to pay more for the 'convenience' of only one stop, I can go via Chicago, but the only available return flight option has me at the airport at 4.30AM for a 6.30AM flight - which I've always managed to opt out of in the past. But with these silly reduced schedules, it now is the only option.

I'd rather not start or end our holiday with stupidly expensive or stupidly inconvenient air travel, but it appears that is our only option. Thank goodness my days of heavy business travel are behind me.

BA do fly to Atlanta, I think.

we've just ha a similar nightmare trying to find flights, and going via Atlanta was one option. not sure if it ws a codeshare option or not. the itmings didn't work for us, as we would have been stuck for a connecting flight for hours, which we didn't fancy.

good luck - flight availability has certainly decreased since the last time we went to the states (about 2 1/2 years ago)

Just done a quick check (via thomas cook flights) and it seems you can go direct from London to Atlanta with:

Delta
British Airways
Iberia
KLM

gillybean - thanks for checking.

I must admit, one of my unofficial 'rules' of travel has been to fly all the way through on the same carrier, if at all possible.

Also, thinking about how practically it could work. So say we flew London - Atlanta on BA......we'd clear passport and customs, and then instead of rechecking just outisde customs, would we have to trek out to the main terminal desks to re-check our bags on a different carrier for the internal domestic flight? And, we'd have to change terminals - presumably with cases?

I'm trying to avoid a nightmare journey, and end up at my destination with bags....!

what is your final destination then?

What has happened to us on a same day internal transfer within the US is as follows:-

Bags are tagged through to final destination at the UK airport. On arrival into the US we cleared immigration and customs with cases. After that, the suitcases get put onto the transfer carousel and then we legged it to the other domestic terminal (having had to go through security again in that terminal to get to the appropriate gate area).

Allow at least 2 hours to do all that because the clock starts ticking as soon as the plane lands.

gillybean - final destination varies, rotates between Louisville, Nashville and Birmingham.

last time I went to the States was with AA it was about 4 yrs ago

I'm still traumatised