Trains/Flights to Carcassonne?

liz545

Hello all,
I'm due to travel to Carcassonne in September, for a holiday with The Boy's family. We can be a bit flexible on dates - we want to leave around the 11th and return around the 20th but can go a few days either way. Apparently Carcassonne and Perpignan are the only airports relatively close to where we're staying, but I'm having difficulty finding cheapish flights. Ryanair are coming in pretty costly, at least £100, and given their lousy customer service record, I don't want to pay a fortune to be abused on my journey!
BA are coming up cheaper for flights to Toulouse, and I was wondering if it'd be feasible to fly to Toulouse and then get the train to Carcassonne. Does anyone have any experience of using the trains in France, or advice?
Thanks!
Liz

budgetflyer

liz545 wrote:

Ryanair are coming in pretty costly, at least £100, and given their lousy customer service record, I don't want to pay a fortune to be abused on my journey!

Liz

Have you ever flown with Ryanair? They fly 40 million people a year. probably 99.9999% of them are happy.
Take your chance if you must with good old BA. Staff are threatening to go on strike again this summer re their pensions

liz545

budgetflyer wrote:

Have you ever flown with Ryanair? They fly 40 million people a year. probably 99.9999% of them are happy.
Take your chance if you must with good old BA. Staff are threatening to go on strike again this summer re their pensions

I've flown with them once, which is why I'm reluctant to do it again. To cut a long story short, there were delays to the flight and our luggage, and Ryanair's attitude was essentially 'You've paid very little for your flight, so you should be grateful you got there at all.' I'm sure that most of their crew are nice people, but the head office's attitude to their customers is appalling, and I'm reluctant to travel with them in case there's another problem like that.
At least BA aren't working from the starting assumption that their customers are an inconvenience, and if there are strikes they'll compensate accordingly.

Louisa_Jane_2

Have you tried https://www.bmibaby.co.uk - they have a route Manchester - Perpignan which we used at Whit half term. We live near Milton Keynes, so our nearest airport is Luton, but ryanair wanted almost £1000 for the 5 of us, whereas BMI Baby was £450 - it was worth the drive to Manchester to save £550!!

sundin13

My Dad is going to Carcassonne by train this week...so there must be some. Try seat61.com for all european rail info.

Good luck with it

Hippychick

Trains are quite straight forward in France. I think it is about an hour between Toulouse and Carcassonne.

But bear in mind you will still have to get from the airport to the train station. I am sure they will have a shuttle bus that can take you stright there.

The airport website should be able to tell you.