May 16th - Fact-checking the latest train fare-bashing news story
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2022
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A Sunderland football fan is travelling to London via Menorca to watch a match at Wembley, as it’s cheaper to fly on a budget airline than getting a train or bus, papers have reported this week. James Jelly, a 33-year-old purchasing manager, says he is travelling to the capital for Sunderland’s League One play-off against Wycombe Wanderers at Wembley Stadium this Saturday.
He claims a £23 total air fare with Ryanair from Newcastle to Menorca and on to London Stansted is the cheapest option, with trains to the capital running into the hundreds of pounds and even coaches more expensive than flying. But is the story all it's cracked up to be? I've done some fact-checking.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Independence Travel Podcast with me, Simon Calder, and you are very welcome to join me, |
| 0:09.1 | although, let me say that I am not in the best of humour yet again. I apologise for that, |
| 0:16.5 | but I'm just, oh, so fed up with what I have been reading in various mass media, |
| 0:24.6 | in particular, in the sun, in the times, and in the mail. |
| 0:29.0 | And this is all about how it is cheaper. |
| 0:32.4 | If you are trying to get from Sunderland in North East England to London, |
| 0:37.0 | it is cheaper to fly via Spain. |
| 0:41.9 | Now, this all concerns an interesting chap. A Sunderland supporter called James Jelly. Mr. Jelly |
| 0:49.0 | is trying to get from Sunderland to his location for the League One playoff which Sunderland is playing |
| 0:58.5 | against Wickham Wanderers this coming Saturday. |
| 1:02.4 | What could possibly go wrong? |
| 1:05.3 | Well the idea is that Mr. Jelly has told the son that, well, it was much cheaper for him to travel via |
| 1:17.2 | Menorca. Here's how the sums work out, he said. So, 23 pound total airfare and a 28-pound |
| 1:26.4 | airport hostel in Menorca, and means well it's 51 pounds and much much |
| 1:33.2 | cheaper than the train he says that a friend of his um is paying 260 pounds um the airport the airline british airways wants 162 for a one-way flight from Newcastle to |
| 1:49.5 | Heathrow. Now, clearly I had to fact-check this. And in fact, the first thing I found was that |
| 1:58.3 | Mr. Jelly overpaid for his flights. He could have done much better. |
| 2:03.2 | He could have got paid about 20% less, in fact. £9.99 outbound from Newcastle to Minorca, |
| 2:10.8 | $999 euros. So about £8.50 for the onward departure on Friday from Minorka to London Stansted. |
| 2:20.0 | So that gets us in at well under £20 for the cost of those flights. |
| 2:25.9 | That's fantastic, isn't it? |
| 2:27.9 | And the sun says, oh, cheaper than getting a train or bus to London. |
... |
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