Thusrday May 17 one of my best friends – and super photographer – Kimberley and I flew to Vienna from Groningen Airport Eelde. I will do a different blog post about my trip to Vienna (in the meantime check my vlog). In this one I would like to share my experience with flying from Groningen Airport Eelde. I really enjoyed flying from this small sized airport for the following five reasons:
“GAE is the cheapest airport of the Netherlands when it comes to parking!”
- Easy and quick transfers
You can fly to almost anywhere from Groningen Airport Eelde. Not always with a direct flight (although they do have a lot of direct flight options as well), but often with a short layover. We for example flew to Vienna via Copenhagen. On the way there we had to wait 2 hours and 15 minutes for our next flight and on the way back only 1,5 hour. This way we landed in Vienna within 4 hours, a pretty decent travel time! Plus I really like to walk around airports and therefore I didn’t mind discovering Copenhagen airport. Kimberley even bought a cute little souvenir: a little statue of the famous mermaid. Discover all destinations from GAE.
- GAE is closeby
Of course this isn’t the case for everyone, but for me an my fellow Northern Dutchies Eelde is very strategically located. It doesn’t only matter in distance, but also in crowdedness. The two factors together make my travel time significantly less than when I had to drive to Schiphol (Amsterdam).
- Cheap parking
Since my boyfriend brought us I must admit I’m not speaking from experience, but I’ve been told that parking at GAE is very cheap; it even is the cheapest airport of the Netherlands when it comes to parking. Next time my boyfriend and I are going on vacation together this could be an important reason to choose for flying from GAE, since we’re always unpleasantly surprised by the high parking costs at Schiphol.
- Short waiting lines
I was so surprised by how quickly everything went at GAE: checking in went fast, we passed security in a blink of an eye (they were very friendly by the way) and we stepped out of the plane upon arrival our suitcases were pretty much immediately on the luggage belt. My suitcase even was the first one to show up!
- Traveling relaxed
Thanks to everything I mentioned above traveling from GAE is very relaxed, which might even be the biggest advantage for flying from a compact airport like GAE. There’s just a much more relaxed vibe than at for example hectic Schiphol. Now I can appreciate the hustle and bustle of big airports as well, but if you don’t and you’re easily stressed out I really recommend you to try flying from a smaller airport like GAE. I really think you’ll be traveling so much more relaxed.
“I was surprised about how fast everything went at Groningen Airport Eelde!”
Although this trip was a collaboration with Groningen Airport Eelde everything I mentioned above is sincere. I used to click immediately click Schiphol when searching for tickets, but from now on I’ll definitely check for flights departing from Eelde as well. So you could say this trip literally and figuratively broadened my horizon! More information about Groningen Airport Eelde can be found here.
Did you ever fly from a compact airport like Groningen Airport Eelde? Or did you ever consider it? I’m curious!
xoxo,
Rowan
* This post was created in collaboration with Groningen Airport Eelde.