Transair....they're not always greedy buggers

It's a pretty widely accepted opinion amongst the piloting community in the UK and Ireland, and to some extent those on the continent, that if you're ever going to buy anything that's aviation oriented, then you should steer clear of Transair, based in the UK.


My own experiences have not been negative, and on the few occasions I happened to buy something it arrived on time and at a reasonable price. However, that was limited to about two or possibly three instances. The rest of the time I would either buy when I was in the U.S. or buy online (ebay, Sporty's etc) and then either have it shipped direct (it it was under the Customs threshold) or brought over by a visiting work colleague. And failing the US option, there was also "The Pilot Shop" for charts etc based at Lelystad airport.


That is until recently however. The EPIRB/PLB that I had for the Robin ATL had suddenly sprouted legs and walked. It's location is to date still unknown and given there is a legal requirement to carry on onboard at all times, I had to replace on pronto.


I carried out the usual scouting around in the U.S. first, then took a look at "The Pilot Shop" and then finally looked at Transair's online store. Long story short, by the time I factored in the shipping and import costs from the U.S., Transair was by far the cheapest place to buy it. I was surprised at first, so I went to compare some other items, and found that they were also equally priced compared to the shipping from U.S. option and better priced than TPS. This isn't the case on all items of course, TPS is cheaper on certain products they carry.


I guess the whole point of me writing this is to advise my fellow pilots to take the time to shop around. Flying is already an expensive hobby, and reputations precede some organisations, but they're not always true.