Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Luton

Belgrade Trip – Getting Back from Luton Airport

I had a slightly (very) sub-optimal arrangement to get back to Newmarket from London Luton Airport, although I’ve realised if I can get slightly earlier flights back then I can get a National Express bus straight back. Unfortunately, the final leg of that service isn’t operated a night, so I had a few hours wait at the Pret landside with a 99p filter coffee. They have power and seating, that’s all I really required. I was suitably productive though, so the time wasn’t wasted.

The coach can arrive at any of these gates it seems.

As a slight side issue, why are they being that precise that a coach will be leaving one minute late? And I accept there are more important things to worry about in the world, but when you’re meandering around outside an airport at 04:30 these things provide at least a modicum of amusement.

Here it comes.

Four of us boarded. This route just flits between Luton Airport and Cambridge, obviously much busier later in the day taking passengers from the airport. They need more legroom on these coaches, that’s my summary of the service.

Morning Cambridge!

Then a 20 minute walk to the railway station.

It’s all happening now.

There’s the Ipswich Rocket at platform 5 that took me back to Newmarket.

After a quick sausage roll at Greggs waiting for Wetherspoons to open, I then had the £3 breakfast and £1 unlimited coffees. I quite a few coffees to stay awake, but as Tony Blair said, “that is that, the end”. Well, for the Belgrade trip anyway. I’m conscious I’ve skipped great chunks of the history, food and culture that I thought I’d write about, but there we go, maybe I’ll get back to it another time. Oh, I didn’t mention, that was one of the better Wetherspoons breakfasts so all was well with the world.

September 17, 2024
Belgrade Trip – Wizz Air (Belgrade to Luton Airport)

The delights of check-in started with having to queue up to get a printed boarded pass, as this is one of the airports where I couldn’t check-in using the app. There was a 25 minute queue here, but it was worth it when the staff member at the desk noticed a queue dodger and sent them back to the end of the line. As a British citizen, I obviously rely on people in power to enforce the queueing system as it’s simultaneously important not to see society collapse into a heap, whilst also not being brave enough to mention anything to the individual directly who might be responsible for civilisation falling by not respecting the queue.

The flight was on time, always a delight. The airport is in two bits, the rickety old bit and the more shinier bit which they’ve constructed. They call it Terminal 2, but it’s all joined together, but the budget airlines go from the more rickety bit of Terminal 1.

And another queue to board. But, a golden opportunity to stare at my phone, something I always try and take advantage of. I’m not one for monitoring my screen time, other than to sometimes ponder that it isn’t enough. However, I digress.

If you boarded from the front half of the aircraft you could use the air bridge. If you were in the back half of the aircraft you were despatched outside to walk up the rear steps. I was randomly given a decent seat once again, this time an aisle seat near the front. I don’t pay for seat reservations, but if I did, then I’d go for an aisle arrangement. I boarded the aircraft and some old woman was in my seat in what appeared like a bid to sit next to her friend. I suspect they were about to ask me to swap seats, but since they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Serbian, I was sitting where my boarding pass told me to. Without sounding middle aged and grumpy, of which I’m only one as frankly I still identify as a millennial, if it’s important enough to sit next to someone then just pay the bloody seat reservation fee. The woman spent the entire journey with her head in her hands propped on the tray table. The guy by the window seat looked as confused as me as to how that appeared to be comfortable. However, each to their own. The fare was again around £10, ridiculous value for money and I had no complaints about any part of the service. Wizz Air don’t have a great reputation in some quarters, but as yet I’ve not experienced any problems. Although, give it time….

This was after landing at Luton Airport, it’s a bit blurry unfortunately but it’s important to show willing….. The aircraft was an Airbus A321, registration code G-WUKV, which had already been to Istanbul and back earlier on during the day. They certainly work these aircraft hard, but it’s not yet a year old as it was delivered to Wizz Air on 29 September 2023.

With that, I just had the expedition to get home and that didn’t allow much time for sleeping.

September 17, 2024
Belgrade Trip – Wizz Air (Luton Airport to Belgrade)

Finally, my ‘riveting’ series of posts about this trip starts to have some relevance to Belgrade….. I’ve never been to Serbia before, so this was a new experience for me. The boarding arrangement was smooth and well managed, I had a wait of only around five minutes in the boarding queue before going down the stairs to board the aircraft, I was suitably impressed. I am aware of the negativity that Wizz Air receives, but so far (and this might change at any time, I fully accept that) I’ve not had any problems with them.

There’s the aircraft, looking ready for action.

And boarding. I prefer not to board with an air bridge as it lets me get a photo of the aircraft and work out the registration number and not have to look it up later. Those with disabilities might have a different point of view on this though.

The aircraft is G-WUKO, which I don’t think I’ve been on, but I don’t always record them which limits how useful these sort of comments are. And I’m not sure if anyone is really too focused on whether I’ve been on a particular aircraft before if I’m being entirely honest to myself. The Wizz Air fleet is one of the newest and this aircraft is an Airbus A321 which was delivered to the airline in May 2021.

I didn’t pay for a seat reservation, so I went for a random one and was fortunate enough to get a window seat. There was no-one sitting next to me, so it was quite an agreeable flight. To put this into perspective as well, the flight cost me £10.49, so it would be hard to be too disappointed here. We arrived into Belgrade on time, the aircraft was clean and the cabin crew were professional and friendly. The aircraft was only around 75% full, so despite the low prices, this wasn’t the most popular of services. This is the sort of flight that I think the unlimited flights pass that Wizz Air are selling will be trying to fill up a bit.

Around 15% of customers bought something from the refreshments trolley, a couple seemed tempted by the perfumes that were being sold, it all made a bit of money for the airline. Unfortunately for Wizz Air, I didn’t much help their bottom line with this flight. I had a look at the air passenger duty that Wizz Air have to pay, and for the economy seat to Serbia, they have to pay £13 to the Government. Anyway, I was very pleased again with the airline, everything went smoothly and I received what I considered to be excellent value for money.

September 10, 2024
Belgrade Trip – Luton Airport and My Lounge

This is only a short post (with poor quality photos), as I didn’t really mean to visit My Lounge. I used to visit this lounge a few years ago, but it has been modernised and updated now with a new ground floor reception area. I had assumed that the lounge would be fully booked, but I went and asked if they usually allowed Priority Pass walk-ins. He said that it was normally fine and so I thought I might as well pop in and wait for my flight. You find your own table here, unless you’ve pre-booked, and there weren’t many left, but I found a quiet corner out of the way. Incidentally, note the healthy banana I acquired here. There really is no end to my healthy eating.

I’ve written before about the odd situation with lounges in the UK, and it is mostly the UK, where they are less business lounges and more ‘all you can drink before your flight’ rooms. This is why, I suspect, Priority Pass has had to come to an arrangement with some dining options at the airport, as otherwise there isn’t enough capacity. I can hardly comment on what other people drink (I mean, look at the state of https://untappd.com/user/julwhite…..) but I watched several customer groups here trying to get their value for money by constantly visiting the bar and I think they achieved their aims. I opted for just one beer, not least as it was Birra Moretti, which doesn’t surprise and delight me.

This is a bit hopeless as a photo, but I hadn’t intended to spend much time here, but I was trying to show that the surroundings are comfortable and tasteful in their decoration. I’m not sure that’s evident at all from the photo, but luckily I’ve just written it, so that’ll do instead. It did feel relaxing to be fair and there were plenty of charging points dotted around, with everything feeling clean. There were plenty of staff and so empty plates and glasses were being cleared promptly.

I did like their nachos, but the food offering was highly limited here. It was effectively jacket potatoes or nachos, which is sufficient as a snack, but the usual entrance price here is £32 and that’s a punchy price point. So we get into the situation where some customers will try and get their value from the alcohol, which means the lounge has cut back in other areas to facilitate that. For someone who doesn’t drink alcohol, I’d suggest that it’s probably better value to go to one of the restaurants at the airport rather than visit the lounge.

Although the staff member on the door said that Priority Pass customers are usually accepted, I’m not entirely convinced that’s anywhere near guaranteed judging from the reviews. But, I’ll pop in again if I get chance to try and get some better photos than the random rubbish I’ve managed to get here. I was going to get them during this visit, but then I noticed that the gate for my flight had been called.

September 10, 2024
Belgrade Trip – Luton Airport and Big Smoke Restaurant

I mentioned in my last post about my new acquisition of an unlimited Priority Pass card, so my first usage of it was at Big Smoke Restaurant. The deal is that they give you £18 to spend as a dining credit at the restaurant on anything that you want. It’s not a huge amount, so it’s not going to get any traveller a three course meal and a smorgasbord of drinks, but it’s a decent snack. The service element was a bit fiddly, but it didn’t help that I asked to sit at the bar as there were power points and I didn’t want any of my devices low on battery. This meant that they didn’t have any waiter service to take my order, which might have made the process smoother. I tried to order at the bar and I was told they needed to find a staff member from the restaurant area to pre-scan my Priority Pass card, which they did.

I then tried again to order and this was going brilliantly until they realised that had left some breakfast menus out, and I needed to order from the lunchtime menu which started at 11:00. Again, it was sorted quickly enough and everyone was helpful, although this is a slightly fiddly arrangement all round. Here’s the main menu and it’s evident how far the £18 will go, or not go as the case may be.

I went for Smoky Chicken Wings and a pint of Electric Eye. The food took 12 minutes to arrive, it was neatly presented and the chicken was tender and fell off the bone easily. I decided I’d eat the celery for some variety in my life, which was particularly healthy of me. Would it have been worth the £17.20 that it would have normally cost? Probably not to be honest, I’d have likely gone to Boots next door and got three meal deals for less money. However, the dining environment was clean and comfortable, the service was polite and I was able to charge all my devices up which ensured that I wasn’t overly stressed for the rest of the day. I’ve got a new battery pack to avoid issues, but I try and remain fully charged when about to travel somewhere new, just in case something goes a bit wrong.

For an airport location, the prices aren’t unreasonable and I merrily listened in to other customers to see if they were happy. In general, they seemed to be and given the absence of a Wetherspoons here, it’s likely one of the better pre-flight options. As for the Priority Pass, it’s a handy option for those on unlimited passes, but it’s poor value for those on limited visit pass as it’d be cheaper to just pay at the restaurant.

September 10, 2024
Belgrade Trip – Luton Centre to Luton Airport

Before I start this, I accept that this post is, well, rather niche and a bit prosaic. But, I quite like reading back on the connecting parts of trips and since it’s my blog, I might as well write the stuff I want to remember. I’ve walked from the centre of Luton to the airport on numerous occasions and I have to say, it’s rarely an inspirational meandering through beautiful landscape and undulating hills. I’m quite proud of myself for this photo, which I think is the most beautiful spot along the route. Although, if truth be told, it’s actually in a traffic island (the underpass is visible at the rear of the photo), but it does show the little river that weaves its way through the town. It’s the River Lea, which becomes much bigger by the time it hits London and is also the origin of the town’s place name (Luton I mean, not London).

Last time I walked by here, the Luton DART hadn’t been completed. It’s a ludicrous fare of £4.90 to get to the airport from here, which is a minor walk (for me, I don’t speak for anyone else). When I get a train ticket that includes Luton Airport station, it does though include the DART ride. Not that I’ve had a situation where I’ve needed to buy such a ticket, but maybe one day.

I walked over these steps once before realising it was much less hassle just to cross the road. This is always my sign that I’ve reached Luton Airport. Other major airports have an old plane or something similar on display, but I like this little bridge. One point of this post is that if anyone does want to just walk to the airport, it’s only a thirty minute expedition from the town centre and so for anyone with a backpack and no walking issues, it’s some free exercise before the flight.

And here we are, London Luton Airport. Does travel get more decadent than this?

September 10, 2024
Belgrade Trip – Dragonfly Bus 610 from Hatfield to Luton

It was easier than I expected to get from Hatfield to Luton, it’s a short walk from the Travelodge to the Galleria and the bus stop is just opposite the front of the shopping centre. Some sensible urban planning.

As usual, I got to the bus stop 25 minutes early for my bus. Fortunately, the previous 610 bus was delayed by 20 minutes and so I was able to board the bus after just a couple of minutes of standing at the bus stop. Sometimes the bus Gods smile nicely…. The cost for this journey was just £2, many thanks to the bus cap which I still think is one of the best policies that the last Government managed to think of. The current Government are refusing to extend the cap, which otherwise runs out at the end of 2024, but it would be a serious blow for public transport if they fail to do so. I checked what the bus fare would have been before the price cap and back in 2019 I would have had to pay £9 to use the service.

This whole arrangement meant that I was in Luton around 60 minutes after setting off from Hatfield. My entertainment was boosted by two separate passengers asking the bus driver if she knew that her bus was late. It transpired that she did realise that the bus was late, but it was nice of the passengers to check.

September 9, 2024
2023 Lisbon Trip (Day One – Wizz Air from Luton to Lisbon)

Before I start writing about my flight, I have to mention the enormous common sense shown by Steve. Using his initiative and experience in the car industry he had managed to acquire Bev a stick at Lisbon Airport. This seemed a good idea at the time, although we heard Bev stomping around with the stick clacking about for the entire weekend. We were very tolerant though of course.

That was my flight, the Wizz Air W4493 18:30 to Lisbon. I was slightly nervous here as it was 17:44 and it was saying that the gate would be shown at 17:40 and my experience from BA is that when the time is reached it means there’s some kind of problem. Fortunately, a few minutes later the gate was announced.

We were departing from Gate 26 and the airport has a lot of these gates downstairs to give them extra space. Some of the gates are a bit of a walk from the main terminal, this one was only around five minutes.

I managed to be third in the non-priority queue which gave me no benefits at all.

Well, other than I got a seat in the non-priority section after they had checked my passport.

The whole arrangement was efficient and well thought through, I liked the professionalism of Wizz Air here. It’s not glamorous, but I like knowing where I’m supposed to wait and they do make it clear. Wizz Air work their planes hard, this was the fifth of six sectors that the A320 was making that day. It’s aircraft G-WUKF which they’ve been operating since March 2018, their fleet is generally all modern and I feel they’re a very safe operator. Their customer service reputation is somewhat all over the place, but that is true for many budget airlines and I’ve never experienced any negative issues with them.

I didn’t get fortunate with the seat Gods insomuch as I got randomly allocated a middle seat, but all was well and there was sufficient space. The crew are much more ruthless in terms of timing than with BA, they want backpacks under the seats and larger cabin bags in the overheads as quickly as possible. I appreciated that efficiency, it meant that we landed in Lisbon on time with the flight taking just over two hours and thirty minutes.

The flight wasn’t too bad in terms of being sold stuff, as Ryanair traditionally go a little over the top. There were a couple of food and drink runs with the trolley and I think a call for duty free, but for much of the time they dimmed the lights perhaps in the hope of sedating the passengers. The aircraft was clean, the pilot making the announcements sounded competent and the crew were all friendly. Bearing in mind that this flight cost me £11, I can say that I received decent value for money.

One thing that I’ve never really understood about so many passengers is their rush to leave the aircraft. They’ll get up before the seatbelt lights are off, they’ll barge others and then push their way onto the coach that took us to the terminal in Lisbon. I don’t mean every passenger of course, but a good number and that’s been on every flight I’ve ever been on. I have no idea why some people seem so much in a rush at this point of their journey.

The reason I don’t understand it is that everyone then just meanders around so slowly to get to the border control desks. If you want to rush, my aviation top tip is just dither about on the aircraft and then walk quickly when in the terminal as you can just walk around everyone or use the stairs when others use the escalators. I know that not everyone can walk quickly, but for those that can it means getting to the border control desk ahead of everyone else and that’s what happened to me. I’ve digressed again though in my airport observations, but passengers so often seem stressed and hurried when disembarking. As an aside, after I navigated the extensive queueing system the border guard had a smile and it was good to be back in Portugal, my second time in the country and my first in Lisbon.

Here’s Lisbon airport terminal and all I had to do for the evening was walk thirty minutes to the hotel as I wasn’t going to pay €5 for the shuttle bus. I’m not made of money and I was conscious that the train from London had cost £2.90 (£1.45 after delay repay), the flight was £11 and so paying nearly £5 for a five minute shuttle was not good value.

Finally, all four of our little brigade were safely in Lisbon, but we were missing Gordon already who couldn’t come for reasons unknown, mostly ones we made up.

March 2, 2023
2023 Lisbon Trip (Day One – Getting to Luton Airport)

There was little to report from the other three over in Stansted Airport, but Bev was enjoying being pushed about and thought after her two meals in the JD Wetherspoon outlet that she’d have a Pret to wash it all down.

Whilst Bev was being treated like a celebrity, I’d completed my visit to the White Horse in Luton and I’ve written about that separately.

I didn’t realise that the bastion of journalism that is the Sunday Express has left Luton. Or, perhaps their sign just fell off.

It’s about a 40 minute walk to the airport from the town centre, but I managed to get lost and ended up meandering randomly around, although at least that means I saw more Luton streets than I could ever want to ever again. The reason that I mention this is that I walked by Luton Airport Parkway railway station and they’re near to opening the Luton DART, which has been in testing before passengers can use it from 10 March 2023. Some people have been more fortunate, King Charles III got to have a little ride on the DART last December.

There’s currently a shuttle bus to the airport from the railway station, or it’s around a 15 minute walk. I must admit to being quite astounded that they’re planning to charge £4.90 for this three minute journey on the DART and I can’t quite imagine many more expensive railway journeys for the distance travelled. The costs of construction are ludicrous, it was meant to cost £225 million and has gone soaring over £300 million already and judging by the local newspapers there are some slightly annoyed residents wondering where this money has gone. In the future, any ticket to Luton Airport Parkway will now include the cost of using the DART, but this raises the odd situation that I paid only £2.90 for my ticket from London St Pancras to Luton last week and so they’ll have to charge a fair chunk more for passengers who aren’t going as far (the parkway station is before Luton if travelling from London).

Anyway, I doubt I’ll ever use the DART as it seems completely unaffordable and as I won’t have any luggage, children or other things slowing me down, I’d rather just walk for 15 minutes. Maybe if Bev flies from Luton the matter might be different though.

After getting only slightly lost en route, the promised uplands of London Luton Airport appeared on the horizon. It’s a functional airport, but it struggles to cope with the number of passengers that it’s getting and it’s not really a sufficiently large terminal. To be fair, they want to change matters by expanding the current terminal and building an entirely new one as well. That would see an increase in passenger numbers from 18 million a year which they currently get to a new limit of 32 million. They’re already the fifth largest airport in the UK by passenger numbers and if they want to increase they’ll have to build that new terminal.

Inspired by Bev, I used my coffee subscription and charged my devices at the landside outlet of Pret. And, yes, I am getting onto writing about Lisbon very soon now. The screens were showing that my Wizz Air flight was going to be on time and just as I getting ready to go through security I heard that the others had landed in Lisbon. Leaving them just with one problem, they needed to find Bev a stick.

March 2, 2023
Luton – The White House (Visit 2)

I’ve written about this pub before, so won’t linger on its history again. But it’s the Good Beer Guide listed JD Wetherspoon venue, their only pub in the town as they’ve closed the London Hatter on Park Street.

It’s quite an attractive interior although there’s quite a lot of bouncing of the upper level floor when anyone climbs up the circular stairs. It’s peaceful and calm with numerous power points up here if anyone wants them. I didn’t really get to engage with any team members as I used the app, but they seemed friendly and helpful.

There were six real ales on, two that I’ve haven’t had before and this is the Going Loco from Tring Brewery from Tring in Hertfordshire. It was well kept and at the appropriate temperature, but it didn’t have much depth of flavour although would likely make a satisfactory session beer with its 3.9% ABV.

There was a little bit more going on with the Ossian from Inveralmond Brewery who are from Perth in Scotland. Hoppy and full in flavour, it’s a 4.1% ABV golden ale. Well-kept again, the pub feels like it deserves its place in the Good Beer Guide and the beers were both priced at £1.23 for a half.

The pub is generally well reviewed on-line, although I was amused at this:

“Generally when someone orders a meal in any restaurant and it isn’t available either a refund is given or a substitution of such . I do not understand why if a meal of beans on toast is ordered then given as just toast that you have the cheek to refund the beans as if it was and extra”.

That’s not really ideal, I’m with the customer there. If you sell beans on toast and only have half the core ingredients, it’s probably best not to just bring out half the elements required for the meal.

“Was just starting to eat my breakfast at around 10am. I was watching a film on my phone while eating my breakfast as there was no music. This bar tender came over and asked me to turn the volume down. The volume wasn’t that high and didn’t see anyone going to complain. Unless there people praying there I can’t understand the point as being a pub where music is normally played and sometimes can’t hear what you are saying, I found it insulting. There are are better places to be treated properly. I’ll take my money else where.”

I’m entirely with the pub, I’d personally say that team member was spot on. Music isn’t normally played there for a good reason…..

Anyway, definitely a safe bet for anyone wanting real ale in Luton.

March 2, 2023