Ryanair has a base at Liverpool airport, and the fares are often significantly cheaper than from London or other southeast airports - the saving can sometimes be in the hundreds of pounds for peak flights !
Getting to LPL is a lot easier than it used to be with the Airport Parkway station a few miles from the airport having a good range of rail connections. Gone are the days when you had to get a taxi to Runcorn station !
The best fares to Liverpool South Parkway from London are using London Northwestern Railway (the renamed London Midland franchise) - I regularly get 15 gbp tickets, which admitted involve a train change / wait at Stafford station (which has a handy Tesco Extra nearby). The easiest way to get these fares is to use LNWR's own website, and to tick the "show our trains only" box in the Advanced Search screen. The LNWR website isn't very user friendly - but it's worth it for those 15 tickets.
To get those really cheap tickets, you need to buy them just to the Parkway station - and then buy a ticket at the station for the bus to the airport. You can buy combined train and bus tickets to the airport - but they won't show up with the "show our trains only" box ticked.
Travelling towards Liverpool in a four carriage train, the platform stairs are at the back of the second carriage - if you're in a rush.
The station is new, spacious and well designed for train and bus connections. There is a Costa cafe, a separate coffee vending machine, and a information desk which also sells chocolate, soft drinks and sandwiches! There used to be a separate shop, but it was never busy (when I was there) and closed down a while ago.
The bus to the airport currently costs 2 gbp - you can pay cash to the driver, but if you want to use a credit card just go to the information desk, and the staff will take payment and issue you a ticket. The ticket machines at the station just sell rail tickets, so don't waste your time trying to buy a bus ticket from them.
There are a few different bus routes to the airport - they all take roughly the same amount of time (around 10 minutes), so unless you are really tight for time, you can just take whichever is the first bus to arrive. The door at the bus bay doesn't open until the bus has stopped - so don't be alarmed if it takes a while to open !
Another option is to walk from the Parkway station to the airport. Google maps reckons that it takes about 55 minutes - but I did it (carrying a small rucksack) in about 45 minutes, including a stop to buy coffee. Whilst the route may look like it's beside a nasty dual carriageway - there's actually a big gap between the wide footpath and the road, so when I did the walk the exhaust fumes weren't bad. You can even route via the "Estuary Commerce Park" and their pleasant ponds (not shown below as Google won't let me embed a map with "restricted roads") !
Just before you turn into the Estuary complex, you walk past New Mersey Shopping Park - which includes a Marks and Spencer Foodhall. Since I had plenty of time, and it's right beside the road, I had a quick look around - and grabbed a coffee for 1 gbp (from a machine). A rather large saving on the price you pay at the airport - and a reasonable coffee for a machine.
Conclusion
Whilst it's always better to have a rail station inside the airport - the easy connection at Liverpool South Parkway station, as well as the incredibly good value train fares (the standard fare from London to Luton Airport is 17.40 gbp) means that I'm happy to make the trip from London - if the price is right and I have the time.
Getting to LPL is a lot easier than it used to be with the Airport Parkway station a few miles from the airport having a good range of rail connections. Gone are the days when you had to get a taxi to Runcorn station !
The best fares to Liverpool South Parkway from London are using London Northwestern Railway (the renamed London Midland franchise) - I regularly get 15 gbp tickets, which admitted involve a train change / wait at Stafford station (which has a handy Tesco Extra nearby). The easiest way to get these fares is to use LNWR's own website, and to tick the "show our trains only" box in the Advanced Search screen. The LNWR website isn't very user friendly - but it's worth it for those 15 tickets.
To get those really cheap tickets, you need to buy them just to the Parkway station - and then buy a ticket at the station for the bus to the airport. You can buy combined train and bus tickets to the airport - but they won't show up with the "show our trains only" box ticked.
Travelling towards Liverpool in a four carriage train, the platform stairs are at the back of the second carriage - if you're in a rush.
The station is new, spacious and well designed for train and bus connections. There is a Costa cafe, a separate coffee vending machine, and a information desk which also sells chocolate, soft drinks and sandwiches! There used to be a separate shop, but it was never busy (when I was there) and closed down a while ago.
The bus to the airport currently costs 2 gbp - you can pay cash to the driver, but if you want to use a credit card just go to the information desk, and the staff will take payment and issue you a ticket. The ticket machines at the station just sell rail tickets, so don't waste your time trying to buy a bus ticket from them.
There are a few different bus routes to the airport - they all take roughly the same amount of time (around 10 minutes), so unless you are really tight for time, you can just take whichever is the first bus to arrive. The door at the bus bay doesn't open until the bus has stopped - so don't be alarmed if it takes a while to open !
Another option is to walk from the Parkway station to the airport. Google maps reckons that it takes about 55 minutes - but I did it (carrying a small rucksack) in about 45 minutes, including a stop to buy coffee. Whilst the route may look like it's beside a nasty dual carriageway - there's actually a big gap between the wide footpath and the road, so when I did the walk the exhaust fumes weren't bad. You can even route via the "Estuary Commerce Park" and their pleasant ponds (not shown below as Google won't let me embed a map with "restricted roads") !
Just before you turn into the Estuary complex, you walk past New Mersey Shopping Park - which includes a Marks and Spencer Foodhall. Since I had plenty of time, and it's right beside the road, I had a quick look around - and grabbed a coffee for 1 gbp (from a machine). A rather large saving on the price you pay at the airport - and a reasonable coffee for a machine.
Conclusion
Whilst it's always better to have a rail station inside the airport - the easy connection at Liverpool South Parkway station, as well as the incredibly good value train fares (the standard fare from London to Luton Airport is 17.40 gbp) means that I'm happy to make the trip from London - if the price is right and I have the time.
