Glasgow - Train or Fly?

[repwqe]

Live in Central London and want to go and see a friend from school who has moved to Glasgow City Centre.

I want to go up over a weekend so go up Saturday morning and come back by Sunday evening. The train is 4h 30m each way.

Option A) Get the first train up from Euston 7:30- 12:00. Then a mid afternoon train back, getting home by 10pm. In Standard this is £55. In Premier it's £90. First is too expensive at £260. I usually only travel first class for long train journeys so would go Premier if worth it.

Option B) Fly with British Airways (low stress) from Heathrow or London City. Early flight out and early afternoon flight back, so be home by 5pm. Cost is about £130.

Appreciate that you have to get to and from the airport. But I doubt that's going to make up the 3hrs each way extra that the train takes.

Need to arrive at airport 90mimutes at least before flight.

So probably a time saving of about an hour.

Which is the more reliable route?

Don't forget the checkin time (significantly shorter at City than Heathrow but City's normally more expensive). And you'll probably want to leave more wriggle room in flight timings just in case of random checkin queues.

Personally I find trains less stress than flying as long as I've got a booked seat.

I'd be inclined to fly as the trains can be very unreliable. Flooding caused all trains to Glasgow ro be cancelled for 24 hours just a couple of weeks ago.

I would always take the train - flights are so bad for the environment

( if you hate the current weather, or extreme heat, or rising food bills or have children )

Btw "fly because trains have been disrupted by climate change" is beyond sad

I travel the route regularly. I'd fly to City (not Heathrow as you won't save any time really).

Or the train, get premium and then download seatfrog to upgrade to first class.

Not quite same journey but I used to get train from Edinburgh to London for day trips for work. It was fine and much less faff than that flying, could just switch off once on train and time difference isn’t much when you take into account the time and cost of getting too and fro
airport.

I didn’t do premium (work stopped paying for business class after 2008) but the train tends to be pretty quite once start to approach northern England

Quiet

Fly. We have only been to Glasgow once, and flights worked out at less than half the price of the train ticket. Darn sight quicker too.

Train. No contest.

It's likely to be quiet - I've always had a pleasant journey London to Glasgow and never bother to upgrade, but I'm tight. One time it got crazy busy going the other way at Newcastle because they were playing in some final at Wembley, but still ok - just beery farts.

Once you get to Glasgow airport you need to get into the city and there's no train, so it's bus or around £30 on a taxi.

The advantage of the train is that it'll put you right in the centre of Glasgow where as the airport is probably 30minutes away depending on traffic. You also need to factor in check-in time at the airport and time to disembark and get out of the airport which is often 20-30minutes even on a domestic flight. Door to door I don't think there's much in it time wise. Personally, I prefer flying if the train is going to be over 3 hours.

I would do train.

But it sounds like one of those circumstances where it's cheaper for you both to fly to Malaga.

Train which is in Central Glasgow. Glasgow Airport is on the outskirts so taxi or bus which is more expensive and time each way

Trains seem to be constantly on strike so I'd say City Airport. It's so quick and easy there.

I love the train journey. Much more relaxing than an airport. I will do anything to avoid taking a flight!

Option 3, overnight bus, you get two full days in Glasgow then and it's really cheap.

Used to do it regularly and the train is so much easier, flying is way more faff for roughly the same amount of time door to door. Travel to and from airports, getting through security and dealing with luggage restrictions vs finding your seat on the train and cracking open a drink/snacks.

Obviously the train. Flights between UK cities should be banned.

her friend doesn't live in Malaga though and even if they both went that's more time and double the cost of transfers etc