Ben Lowry: Luton Airport is now the best way to fly between Northern Ireland and London

​I remember when it was the worst.

(To read Ben Lowry’s main column on how Ireland is making the UK look mean click this link here, and to read him on the perfect weather click here)

I write the above having never spoken to anyone in Luton Airport or any airline. I write it as an independent traveller, who has enjoyed making journeys around the world by every possible method – air, sea, rail, bus, car, bicycle and foot.

It was as a student in Brighton the early 1990s that I first flew Luton Airport to Belfast. The Thamselink rail service had opened a few years before, with direct trains from Brighton to Bedford that stopped in Luton town. From there it was a frustrating, indirect bus to the airport.

The Luton option improved markedly in 1999, when Queen Elizabeth opened a station closer to the airport, Luton Airport Parkway. But you still had to wait and queue for a cumbersome bus to the airport, albeit a shorter ride than the previous one. Then everything changed in 2023. A new skytrain opened direct from Luton Airport Parkway to the airport.

It has faced criticism for costing £4.90 a journey, and being the most expensive rail journey in Britain, covering a mere 1.3 miles. But it does eliminate a tedious transition from airport to train station.

Luton Airport Parkway has arguably the best airport rail connection into London – there are regular fast trains to St Pancras in under that take less than 25 minutes. There are also the Thameslink trains that cut through the eastern edge of central London, with stops at Farringdon (with a change to the ultra modern east-west Elizabeth line) and Blackfriars on the Thames. I have used the latter at times of underground strikes – it is only a bit more than a mile on foot from the Tower of London in one direction, or Trafalgar Square in the other.

Like many people in the province, I have been travelling between NI’s capital city and the UK capital since the 1970s.

As a student I used every journey permutation from Ulster to and from the mainland, including ferries to Cairnryan and Stranraer (and overnight buses to those Scottish ports), the Liverpool boat then train south, as well as using almost every airline route, budget or major, that has flown between Belfast and greater London.

In recent years, at times when flights out of Belfast have cost £300-plus due to a sport or other big event, I have travelled outbound via Dublin, using the fast new coaches on the motorway to Dublin airport which have wifi, and then hopped on a cheap airline to London.

Another handy route to London if the Belfast flights are ridiculously pricey is to take a budget air fare to Birmingham, and then one of the fast trains to the capital, which is not that much longer than than seemingly interminable rail journey from, say, Stansted Airport into the city.

I first used London City Airport before the the completion of the Jubilee line extension in 1999, which made the journey into the West End an easy combination of Docklands Light Railway then Tube.

I flew out of London Gatwick before the Gatwick Express train opened in the mid 1980s, and shortly afterwards. It is a fine train service that only now runs every 30 minutes (formerly every 15).

Heathrow can still be the premier NI air route, but since British Airways bought out the outstanding British Midland (latterly called BMI) service more than a decade ago, there are have been few cheap seats on the route. I used to travel off-peak to get BMI fares such as Belfast City-Heathrow £34 one-way. Now it is BA Heathrow is expensive almost whenever you fly. The Heathrow Express train to London is notoriously pricey too.

Luton now has flights to both Belfast International and Belfast City. I have said that the latter should close, as should City of Derry, in favour of one major, transatlantic airport hub at Aldergrove, with motorways and trains to the door (click here for one of Ben’s articles calling for this, written last year, and for another article in 2023, click here. And to read one of his first articles calling for this, a decade ago, click on this link here).

But our politicians will never agree such as thing – they are more interested in all-things-to-all-men policies such as subsidising the loss making City of Derry indefinitely. Thus, while I would be prepared to see Belfast City close in the interests of NI as a whole, it is handier for me and a more pleasant terminal than the current Belfast International, so flying from it to Luton is a joy.

I have left out one of the six London airports – Southend. It has only had intermittent flights to Belfast. It is actually further out of London than Luton but has a rail link from Liverpool Street.

I was reminded of the Dart when I used Luton recently (I took the lower of the two pictures on this page, at the Luton Airport Parkway end of the Dart). This new monorail, and other airport advances (you do not have to take items out of your bags for airport security scanners) has reminded me that travelling by air is not always a chore …

• Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editor