Yep, Ryanair are big offender here. The have "Frankfurt-Hahn", which is over over 2 hours drive from Frankfurt, and is in a different State! The same for Dortmund (Weeze), which is over an hours drive away from Dortmund! They've been taken to court and fined over this, but they still call them Frankfurt and Dortmund in their advertising and booking systems!

Around 2000 passengers a year turn up at Dortmund airport, only to find they have over an hours travel to get to the check-in desk!

Why would Ryanair get fined, they don't name the airport? They appear to be using the full name now so it isn't really deceptive, and It's not really any different from calling Luton a London airport.

The full name of Weeze is "Airport Weeze", there is no mention of the name Dortmund in the airport name... It is only Ryanair that call it Dortmund, hence the fine - it costs around 270€ to get a taxi from Dortmund Airport to the Ryanair check-in desk...

Hahn is more difficult. Because Fraport AG (Frankfurt Airport AG) owns a large part of the airport, they are now allowed to call it Frankfurt Hahn, even though it isn't anywhere near Frankfurt (a bit like calling Birmingham airport "London (Birmingham) Airport".

Ryanair have it down as Dusseldorf (Weeze) and google make it out as 58 minutes from Dusseldorf. Likewise London (Luton) is 55 minutes from London. At least it sounds like they are complying better than you have mentioned Dave.

Anyway at the end of the day I think the bigger problem is that the distance to the departing airport is going to be further than the destination one. Not everybody wants to fly to or from London.


I've just found this list of airports that are furthest from their serviced city.

1. Munich West (Memmingen) – 70 miles (112km) from central Munich

2. Oslo (Torp) – 68 miles (110km) from central Oslo

3. Frankfurt (Hahn) – 68 miles (110km) from central Frankfurt

4. London (Oxford) – 60 miles (97km) from central London

5. Stockholm (Skavsta) – 59 miles (95km) from central Stockholm

6. Barcelona (Girona) – 58 miles (94km) from central Barcelona

7. Barcelona (Reus) – 58 miles (94km) from central Barcelona

8. Paris (Beauvais ) – 55miles (88km) from central Paris

9. Dusseldorf (Weeze) – 50 miles (80 km) from central Dusseldorf

10. London (Stansted) – 40 miles (km) from central London

11. Tokyo (Narita) – 37 miles (60km) from central Tokyo

12. Verona (Brescia) – 33 miles (53km) from central Verona

13. Glasgow (Prestwick) – 32 miles (51km) from central Glasgow

14. London (Luton) – 32 miles (51km) from central London

15. Milan (Bergamo) – 31 miles (50km) from central Milan


Apparently Ryanair fly from 13 of these.
At the end of the day Caveat emptor.

That could still apply, even with the duty applies to the aircraft.

I have caught the Ryanair "Stockholm to London" It was a three or four hour bus journey from the Stockholm Bus Terminal to the airport. Tiny with one building and two check in desks. Walk though a door and you are in departures with a single store in duty free. The plane actually comes close to departures and you have a 10 second walk to the plane.

At my new job the company provide mugs, and someone comes 'round twice a day to claim any dirty ones.

There you go then, a solution to you not having to remember to take your one in to work anymore.

Mark

I only forgot mine after I'd taken it home for a cleaning! My one was bigger than the company ones, though.

Your one is always bigger, Edd.

Mark

Having just checked the Birmingham Aiport website I found this.



I would have guessed at 100+ miles and google suggests 111. What a joke, is it deliberate for fun or fraud, or a genuine mistake?

Suffering from mug envy?

Nope, I fully acknowledge that Edd is a bigger mug than me. (8+D

Mark

Luton, like Gatwick, has always been designated a London airport, even when I was a kid - although those who new where Luton was, considered it a bit of a sick joke!

Weeze is not Dusseldorf, has nothing to do with Dusseldorf, doesn't pretend to have anything to do with Dusseldorf. And the courts decided that Ryanair were deceiving customers, when they said that Weeze was in Dusseldorf.

Anyway at the end of the day I think the bigger problem is that the distance to the departing airport is going to be further than the destination one. Not everybody wants to fly to or from London.


I've just found this list of airports that are furthest from their serviced city.


And 142KM from the actual Munich Airport, a long way if you are expecting to fly from München... I lived about a third of the way to Memmingen, from München and our "Dorf" (village) was the last one on the fast train connection network into München and was the absolute END of the designation for calling something München (Munich) - although my municipal town was 20KM further west (Landsburg am Lech). In fact, Augsburg Airport is less than half way to Memmingen and won't have anything to do with München Flughafen, they actually market themselves as a good alternative for inland flights, being less than an hour away from Munich... If they are just under an hour away from Munich (to the East) and an hour and a half away from Memmingen (to the West), I can't see how you can claim that Memmingen is part of München!

Looking at Memmingen (FMM Flughafen Memmingen | Algäu), they don't even mention any connection with Munich - well, they say that they do have regularly scheduled flight connections, but no name connection...

In fact, they specifically state that its offical names are:


As I said, Hahn is difficult, because, in the meantime, Frankfurt Airport have bought a contorlling interest in this freight airport...


Again, I can't see how you could, by any stretch of the imagination, call Oxford part of London.


Again, having flown into Stansted regularly, I would never even think of calling it "London"... If it doesn't have a tube connection, it isn't a London Airport, in my book.


Having visited both, again, I wouldn't dream of calling Brescia part of Verona - I don't think the Veronians would be all that chuffed either!


Yes. But I still think it is a dispicable marketing trick on the part of the airlines, and in some cases, the airports.

I think that the airlines do so because the airport has set a precedent.

Re: Dortmund / Dusseldorf, you had mentioned Dortmund in an earlier post, but from what I could find Weeze airport was significantly closer to Dusseldorf. No doubt these classifications change on a regular basis according to the airport, airline and EU regs.