David Cantrell wrote:
On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 10:07:38AM +0000, Recliner wrote:

Surely it's worth having [Stansted] on Oyster, whoever runs the
trains? I think a lot more Londoners would use it if no separate
tickets were required.

Hands up everyone who chooses which airport to fly from based on what
species of train ticket you'll use to get there.

[looks around]

So that's approximately no-one.


To be fair, I do choose which airport I fly to partly based on the cost and
convenience of the rail journey in London (my destination normally being
south London.) If I have a straight choice between Gatwick, Luton and
Stansted then Gatwick wins every time (sadly I only get that choice in
winter because EJ only fly here during ski season.) The relative cheapness
of the fare on Southern combined with now being able to use The Key to
avoid the ticket queues make it a comparative pleasure to use Gatwick (back
when you had to join the queue for the ticket machines, less so.)

Between Luton & Stansted, I'll fly to Luton wherever possible because
despite the inconvenient bus element it's considerably cheaper to then get
into town.

The outrageous cost of the StEX strongly puts me off Stansted - I have
flown more than once on tickets where the train to London cost more than
the airfare. The availability of the aforementioned 'any train on the day'
apex tickets will influence my decision, but if they had Oyster /coupled
with somewhat less outrageous fares/ that would make a real difference to
my choice of flights. Until then, once (I presume you can't yet?) you can
use Oyster at Luton & Gatwick, the already limited appeal of Stansted is
definitely going to be diminished.

(For completeness, flight costs mean Heathrow is rarely in the equation!)