Having a browse around the Spanish CAA website http://www.aena.es I found an announcement that stated that Ryanair are now operating a daily service from Granada-Jaen airport to Madrid.
Now I have as you know very strong reservations about Ryanair, but if it means I don’t have to drive down to the cattle market called Malaga Airport, I will consider most other options, especially given that I live about 15-20 minutes away from GRX.
So I did a little investigating to see if Ryanair’s GRX-MAD service could be of any use to us when coupled with their MAD-LGW service.
Departure time from GRX depends on what day of the week you choose to travel; on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the flight leaves Granada at 0810, arriving Madrid at 0905. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday it departs at 1750 arriving Madrid 1845.
The onward Ryanair flight to London Gatwick departs at 1915; it cannot therefore considered as a connection on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday given that Ryanair close their gates 40 minutes before departure ie when the flight from Granada is still in the air… and on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday would be passengers for London are going to be hanging around Madrid for 10 hrs…so that’s not really a connection either…
I have a sneaky feeling that on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday the aircraft used for the MAD-LGW flight is in fact the same aircraft that is used for the GRX-MAD flight…with a 30 minute turn-round time at MAD the timings are about right…but if this is the case the flight would not be available for through passengers because Ryanair don’t have a licence to operate a through service GRX-LGW.
Bloody shame really…but typical Ryanair…!
On a slightly different tack, I then posed the question to myself what about BA / Iberia GRX-LGW and came across something which defies all logic…
Taking a typical day (Friday 28th August) GRX-LGW ONE WAY; one flight only because only one Iberia flight serves LGW; it departs at GRX at 0950, change at MAD the fare comes in at a staggering 1422 Euros…ONE WAY!
If however I pair that outbound flight with a return flight from LGW on Sept 29th, again changing at MAD, the total RETURN fare comes in at just 427 Euros…
I don’t think even Mr Spock could explain the logic behind that sort of pricing…
