Flying the 173 miles from Leeds Bradford to London Heathrow has some point to it if you are in West Yorkshire and need to be at Britain’s busiest airport – for example, to connect to a long-haul flight. But if you are simply trying to get from Leeds to London it is a preposterous notion.
Yet one sunny afternoon last June I paid £44 to do just that. I can’t immediately recall if I was persuaded not to take the train by a rail strike, engineering work or a particularly high fare that afternoon. Anyway, my sole experience of Flybe’s second coming was a professional, punctual and three-quarters-empty flight. The Heathrow handling charges alone must have swallowed up the entire fare revenue from the flight.
