Staying at the Ibis hotel in Luton meant that it was only a ten minute early morning walk to the main terminal, although it was all quite a bit busier than I expected at that time.
All was though calm in the airport terminal.
Mine was the sixteenth departure of the day. I’m not entirely sure why I counted them, but having completed the research it would seem wasteful not to publish the findings.
The security process was fast, indeed so fast that I was seated inside Big Smoke restaurant within twenty minutes of having left the hotel. All very efficient.
I had £18 credit to use at Big Smoke with my Priority Pass card so went for the smashed avocado and latte, which handily came to £18.
Nicely presented and although I know that hot honey is a bit too ubiquitous at the moment, it added to the flavour here and the chilli flakes added to the taste. The eggs were slightly firmer than I would like, but the avocado was vibrant, the pickled pink onions added texture and I thought that this was really rather good.
The latte tasted of coffee which seemed positive and was brought over by a young waiter who was positively flirting with just about every customer. This worked better for some than others, he got an annoyed look from one older woman but another younger woman seems to be falling for his charms.
This remains a busy airport and there’s rarely much seating in the main areas, with many of the restaurants looking like they were reaching capacity as well.
The gate was called and all was efficient as ever, although three lads were spotted by Wizz Air staff with an extra bag and they each found themselves surcharged around £60 each. This seemed to be something of a body blow to them, although in general the staff were letting some slightly larger bags just go through without checking.
There’s something rather nice about morning flights and the airport waking up.
Boarding the flight after the usual ten minute wait standing on the stairs inside the terminal.
The aircraft was G-WUKN which appears to be yet another new one for me. I still diligently record which aircraft I’ve been on, although I’m not always entirely sure why. Future historians may be grateful, assuming they have first exhausted every other available source of information.
The seating Gods had given me an aisle seat and there was inevitably going to be extra entertainment as there’s the empty emergency exit row seat in front. Passengers can pay £20 to upgrade to sit there and crew members are very alert to those self-upgrading without paying, so I was hoping for drama.
The flight was relatively busy, at about 80% occupancy and the crew on this flight seemed particularly alert, although I think that the Wizz Air standard is pretty high in this regard anyway. The flight was relaxing enough so I got a little nap and there were no disturbances or random sales of lottery tickets. The crew announcements were clear, the pilot said sensible things and it was all reassuringly undramatic. Incidentally, the cabin crew chased three passengers out of the emergency exit rows seats so I was pleased for that extra entertainment.
We had arrived into Belgrade 25 minutes earlier than expected, although that’s more due to padded schedules than anything else.
This was another really rather lovely flight from Wizz Air, in my usual fan boy style of finding little to ever criticise them for, with the cost of the ticket being just £8.99. Reliable, consistent and back in Belgrade so this blog post series has finally now hit the Balkans.