My next little bit of travel has begun and there’s Liam driving off into the distance after dropping me off at the delights of Luton Airport’s long-stay car park. We saw the shuttle bus arrive and I assumed that it would pick me up promptly. I didn’t realise that it would first undertake a leisurely tour of the car park, taking nine minutes to reach the bus stop.
I didn’t think that it would be wise to stand by the fence taking too many photos, but I realised that the long-stay car park was next to the airside area of the airport. I could see numerous Wizz Air aircraft and the aircraft for my 05:55 flight might well have been among them.
Safely on board as the only passenger in the shuttle bus. I can’t imagine why people aren’t heading to the airport at midnight…. Maybe it’s because people like my friend Richard pay for decadent hotels rather than spending the night appreciating airport infrastructure. They’re definitely missing out.
It was my first time being dropped off at the long-stay car park and I was pleased to be at the terminal just a few minutes after departing. I now have a few hours in Pret before meandering through the security area ready for my flight. How lovely.
“To stay is to exist, but to travel is to live”. It is unlikely to surprise anyone that I agree with this sentiment, although I suspect whoever coined it had rather more romantic forms of travel in mind than standing in a corridor waiting to board a Wizz Air flight to Luton.
I had eaten, courtesy of Priority Pass, at Alpage and I saw the gate was announced relatively early, I meandered off as it’s never clear how long passport control will take.
The walk to the non-Schengen area of the airport.
Which was shut.
Budget air travel consists of a lot of standing around in corridors and this was no exception as after I had gone through the border control process, which took twenty seconds, I spent 45 minutes standing here. Travel can be very exotic.
Off to board.
The clouds had made the temperature quite reasonable, which was slightly annoying as I was now leaving France after days of being too hot. I may have mentioned the heat once or twice during these posts, although I feel I have shown considerable restraint.
The aircraft was G-WUKZ which I’m not sure that I’ve been on before. The seating Gods gave me an aisle seat and the flight was entirely pleasant. As usual the crew were polite, the service was efficient, the aircraft was clean and everyone travelled towards the destination in roughly the manner aviation intended. This is generally my preferred level of excitement when several thousand feet in the air, so all was well.
However, there was a failed landing and a go-around which was slightly sub-optimal from the point of view I was hoping not to have a delay on this flight. The cabin crew made what sounded like a reassuring scripted announcement before the First Officer followed with something rather more spontaneous. I’m not entirely convinced his additional contribution reduced the anxiety levels of every passenger, but at least nobody began distributing life jackets. And I like a bit of drama anyway.
After another fifteen minutes of faffing about above southern England we landed safely. Around five passengers applauded, which immediately gave me something new to be irritated about. I appreciate that landing an aircraft is considerably more complicated than parking a bicycle, but I generally assume the pilots regard getting us onto the ground safely as part of the agreed service.
And back at Luton Airport and I was ready to walk into the town centre, which I’m not sure that I’d call a treat, but at least the weather was moderate. Too hot, but moderate. Anyway, it was a very lovely trip to France, made slightly sad for me as I knew that it was the last trip abroad for a few weeks. Fortunately, I had returned to Luton, which is certainly one way of ensuring that the desire to travel again remains strong.
I arrived safely at Bilbao Airport after some faffing about working out the airport bus. The temperature was much cooler than when I had arrived and there were a few brief moments of rain, as might be evident from the grey sky. At least it prepared me for what the weather was likely going to be like in the UK.
The terminal felt quite busy and there was a limited amount of seating available in the main section.
There was one of the quickest airport security processes to go through, it took under three minutes from walking into the area to leaving it.
I noticed that there was a VIP lane into security for decadent passengers such as Richard.
After a visit to the lounge, which I wrote about separately, I discovered that there was still no gate for my flight so I pottered about exploring the now relatively quiet airport. At least that meant I was able to examine a lot of airport infrastructure, although I did wonder whether I should have just spent another thirty minutes in the lounge eating chorizo.
This was a bit confusing, it’s the line for border control and there’s one agent dealing with passengers on the left and one agent behind four kiosks on the right. I thought I’d try the kiosk and it scanned my passport before stating “invalid passport”, so I assumed it was just for EU passports despite the number of people using it. I went back to the queue and the agent called over that I could just walk through and he’d open the gate. I wasn’t sure if EES was working and just reporting a failure, or whether they were bypassing it. Either way I haven’t got a stamp in my passport, although that appears to be quite random now at the EU borders, presumably to keep collectors of passport stamps emotionally unsettled.
As usual for Wizz Air, I found the boarding process to be well managed and it was clear which queue to get in.
As might be evident, the seating Gods gave me a window seat and I was very comfortable during the flight.
The outskirts of London somewhere. The flight itself was peaceful, the crew were friendly, no-one annoyed me, nothing fell off the aircraft and I spent two hours playing games on my phone instead of sleeping. This might not have been the most sensible life choice, but it kept me amused. The announcements from the pilots were clear, we landed on time and this was once again excellent value for £9 using my Wizz Air Multipass. For that amount, I require a seat, basic structural integrity and a landing broadly in the advertised country. All were achieved.
We boarded via an air bridge in Bilbao, so this is back in London Luton. The aircraft is G-WUKR which I’ve been on before when it brought me back to London Luton from Tallinn. I’m not sure why I am pleased to meet an aircraft again as I doubt it remembers me.
And the aircraft looking very lovely there in the middle.
There were long queues at London Luton as if they hadn’t expected some planes to land there, but the whole process took just under half an hour which ultimately wasn’t too bad. I then had an exciting few hours in the airport before getting a coach to Stansted and then a train to Norwich, but that riveting commentary can come in the next post as I would not want to overwhelm my two loyal blog readers with too much inter-airport glamour all at once.
Another post for the sake of completion, so there were no major dramas getting from Heathrow to Luton. It was rather odd that I was staying around twenty metres from the country’s major airport and had decided to fly from Luton Airport. Such is the lure of the £8.99 Wizz Air flights. Geographical inconveniences don’t concern me though…..
It was raining so I decided against walking the one hour to Hayes and Harlington railway station.
I don’t find buses very exciting, but this was a handy option which only took around ten minutes. I also appreciate that bus content is not traditionally where great travel writing finds its highest expression, but there we go.
I remember when this was all fields…. Well, I remember it before it was on the Elizabeth Line and it had this fancy frontage anyway.
I might not love buses, but I do like trains and here’s the Elizabeth Line train sweeping in. I got the train into Farringdon to complete a little task involving free food and then decided that I’d walk the 30 minutes to King’s Cross St Pancras as the rain had stopped. I’m a natural athlete me, albeit one whose sporting career is mostly based around refusing to pay for short tube journeys.
The delights of St. Pancras, a really rather beautiful shopping centre with some train lines.
Platform 1 was the train to Corby and that would get me to London Luton Airport Parkway in under 30 minutes. I would add that the rail fare was £4.20 which is rather decent value for money I think bearing in mind I only booked it yesterday.
One day I’ll find getting trains boring, but for the moment, it still excites and delights.
In crawls the train…
I don’t like five seats across as I don’t think trains were originally designed for this, but anyway, it wasn’t that busy. I also provided a free tourist service to the guy who was trying to get to Luton and I didn’t once ask him why he wanted to go to Luton which I think showed considerable restraint and perhaps even personal growth.
Still the worst managed railway station in the country in my view, but I won’t labour that point as I might have drivelled on several times before about it.
I walked the twenty minutes to Luton Airport and passed by the Vauxhall building, now closed down and staffed only by security teams and guard dogs.
And safely at London Luton airport.
And the longest queues which I’ve seen at London Luton, although, to be fair, I was still through in under 25 minutes and I was hardly in a rush as I had, once again, arrived five hours early for my flight. I can imagine that my two loyal blog readers can hardly contain themselves with excitement for the next post….
Carrying on from my previous post, I had settled into the gate area that was past border control and I had gone through the EES (European entry/exit system) and had my passport stamped. My flight was late and then there was an announcement that the flight was now on time and it would be departing from Gate 3. This was fine, until I realised that this gate was in the Schengen area of the airport and I no longer was. This presented me with a problem. I was now on the wrong side of border control, which is not generally where I want to be when an aircraft is quietly preparing to leave without me.
So, I decided to go back to the border guard staff and mention the situation. They were helpful and told me that this was something of a mess, but they allocated me a police officer who walked me to my gate and around the newly opened border control area for the new gate.
This was the scene until around shortly before boarding, as many other passengers hadn’t realised that they were now at the wrong gate. And, soon after this, there was something of a deluge of stressed looking passengers and numerous police officers who I assume had pro-actively rounded everyone up they had realised were in the wrong place. I think that everyone boarded the flight, but the queue for border control was thirty deep when boarding commenced.
With that, it was time for me to board at least. It’s aircraft 9H-WNV, which is yet another Wizz Air aircraft that I hadn’t been on.
Passengers were trickling on rather than the usual rush. The seating Gods had given me a window seat for the 80 minute flight and this was unusually for Wizz Air an aircraft that hadn’t really been cleaned from the last passengers. I think that this was more to do with Wizz Air trying to cut the delay so that we departed on time even thought the aircraft was late in, so more about efficiency than anything else.
And there’s the aircraft I just disembarked from and I knew that this was my last flight for around a month, something I felt friends gave me insufficient sympathy for. Anyway, this was another £8.99 flight from Wizz Air with Multipass and it was smooth, efficient and the cabin crew were friendly as usual. The boarding process was a little sub-optimal, but I take into account the fare that I’ve paid and I can cope without jazz bands, champagne, silk cushions and whatever else decadent passengers might want. I also had some good news that my train from London King’s Cross to Ely was cancelled which meant I arrived into Norwich 75 minutes late and so got the entire £22 rail fare back.
[Apologies I published this early if anyone saw a half finished post!]
I was connecting at Katowice Airport to fly to London Luton, although there was no airside connection available. I also discovered that the security area at Terminal A wasn’t open for thirty more minutes, so the process was hardly rushed.
Mine was the 19:45 flight and I had the advantage of popping to the airport lounge, but I wrote about that separately.
The boarding process was all efficient, but there was a particular focus on checking bag sizes on this flight. The lady was walking down the queue and she spoke to me briefly before telling me that my bag was fine, but a fair few were being stopped and charged extra money. One guy was charged four times for his family, so around £320, so it was a profitable exercise for Wizz Air. Although, the rules are very clear, so the customers took a risk.
This lady was charged £80, she might have been a little unlucky. It’s fair to say that she wasn’t very pleased and she asked a couple of us whether we’d been charged as well.
The aircraft is 9H-WAD, yet another one that I haven’t been on before and this has been part of the Wizz Air fleet since 2022.
Everything was smooth and well managed yet again, although the seating Gods had given me a middle seat which wasn’t ideal. However, the flight was only two hours so it’s hardly traumatic. The flight cost the usual £8.99 with my Multipass and the aircraft was clean, the crew were friendly and everything worked as it should.
We landed into London Luton on time and I had a hotel just a short walk away from the airport, which is always something that I look forward to. This marked the end of my one week stay in Poland, Romania and Germany, another successful trip that was made a lot easier with my cheap Wizz Air flights.
I’ve already mentioned that there was a bit of a delay getting to the Etiuda lounge, but it was peaceful and calm when I got here.
The food selection which was all looking nicely presented and appetising.
Delicious.
With all my devices charged and having had enough food and drink, I departed for the gate. The bad news is that it was a bus gate.
The good news was that I was nearly the first to board the second bus to the aircraft, which meant I had some space to stand in the corner. Little victories and all that.
There was a group of quite loud British people who were excitedly telling each other what marvellous drugs they’d taken in Poland and they were going to get drunk on the plane. More of that soon.
Anyway, the aircraft was 9H-WNY and I haven’t been on it before, but it’s yet another new aircraft having only been delivered to Wizz Air in 2025. Their fleet is certainly mostly new and shiny….
The flight was smooth and, yet again, free of any issues. The seating Gods gave me a middle seat, but the people either side were both quiet and didn’t fidget about, so it was a smooth flight.
Back to the lads who claimed that they were going to get drunk on board…. They didn’t expect the Polish crew to reject their demands. Impeccably handled by the crew, the whole arrangement felt safe, well managed and professional.
And back at Luton Airport….. Wooo. We were actually slightly early and there were minimal delays at the border, which meant that I was rather early for my train.
The flight cost £8.99 and Wizz Air didn’t let me down here. A clean aircraft, efficient boarding, a friendly crew and everything felt well managed.
Safely at Luton Airport nice and early, as usual. The security process was smooth and efficient, taking less than five minutes from when I scanned my boarding card.
I popped into Big Smoke with my Priority Pass card and had the usual delicious chicken tenders and a slightly less delicious alcohol free Stella. The service is always friendly and efficient here, with plenty of power points to ensure I didn’t have to stress about that.
And then into Nolito for a healthy snack with pineapple juice. It’s quite pricey and I’m not sure that the quality here quite justified the price, but as it was free, I decided that I’d cope.
By then, it was getting nearer the time when boarding started, with my flight being the penultimate out of the airport that day. I rather like days such as this with an evening flight, I get a chance to get on top of everything work wise and nothing feels rushed.
The boarding process was smooth, well managed and everything was clear. The staff here were friendly and personable, it was all efficient and organised.
And then the boarding, I was towards the back of the aircraft and boarded via the rear doors.
The aircraft was HA-LGM, which is yet another one that I haven’t been on before. It was newly delivered to the airline in July 2024 and inside everything was clean and in a decent state of repair.
I have little to report about the flight, as once again, it was operated by Wizz Air with professionalism and efficiency. The seating Gods had given me an aisle seat with no-one next to me, the announcements were clear, the crew were friendly and it was all peaceful and organised. We landed on time and the pilots kept us informed of what was going on.
The one negative, which wasn’t the fault of the airline, is that they had expected steps to be brought to the back of the aircraft in Wrocław, but they instead used a jet bridge. That meant it took a bit longer for me to disembark with a wait of nearly fifteen minutes on board. This isn’t a problem, but there’s one bus an hour that departs the airport at night and I didn’t really want to miss it as it was already late enough.
I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the advantages of flying on Wizz Air as a passenger with a British passport is that there aren’t generally many of us (and that is obviously a generalisation). Indeed, despite disembarking almost last, there were only two people ahead of me in the queue at border control. This meant that I was able to get through the border quicker than most holders of EU passports, a rare treat, although I’d still quite like an EU passport once again…
Anyway, the efficiency here meant that I was outside the airport with fifteen minutes to spare before the night bus turned up. Another rather lovely flight and a bargain for just £8.99. And it’s lovely to be back in Poland.
There’s my friend Liam departing after kindly dropping me off at Luton Airport and it’s always a delight being back here. Well, it isn’t, but travel is about being positive.
I decided to just stay at the airport overnight, it’s not worth the faffing about leaving the hotel early to get here. And, it’s a more thrifty option. Here’s the airside area shortly after it opened.
My usual visit to Big Smoke with my Priority Pass card and it’s not often that I’m here early enough for the breakfast menu. The £18 allowance doesn’t allow a huge amount of decadence here with prices ever rising.
The poached eggs on avocado with sourdough bread served alongside a pineapple juice was a suitable breakfast for 04:00. It’s half-term this week and the airport was very busy, with Big Smoke being at capacity for much of the time that I was there.
Orange juice, latte and granola at Nolito, where I merrily waited until I got an alert on my phone with the gate number.
Coffee acquired. I’m not sure why the Wizz Air app mentioned the gate number before it was announced, as it led to several customers arriving to see no gate information and then asking staff members for help. It’s handy to get extra time to arrive at the gate though.
With the gate now announced I managed to be the first to queue up, with boarding commencing nearly immediately. This was one of the flights where Wizz Air had mentioned that there might be €100 in Wizz Air credits for volunteering not to fly. I have little interest in this, it would deny me getting any UK261 compensation if they were planning to refuse me.
There’s the aircraft positively glimmering in the morning sun.
The turnaround on these flights is something to behold, we were boarding within fifteen minutes of these passengers disembarking.
Boarding the aircraft, which was registration HA-LWQ, an Airbus A320 which Wizz Air have had in their fleet since 2012 and that I don’t think I’ve been on before.
This is one of the older aircraft in the fleet and these are the old fashioned seats that I haven’t seen in some time. I was pleased that the seating Gods had allocated me an aisle seat as the flight was just about full.
The aircraft was clean, but it felt a little rickety in places, as is perhaps evident with those yellow pieces of tape indicating the damaged overhead lockers. As for the flight, it all seemed well managed, although I was asleep for most of it so all manner of havoc could have been happening and I wouldn’t have known. I hope that I didn’t miss out on any drama though….
And safely at Timișoara Airport, a little earlier than expected. It took only around twenty minutes to get through border control, there were few British people on board and they delayed matters slightly because of the EES.
I decided that it wasn’t worth leaving the airport as my inbound flight from Madeira reached Warsaw at around 22:45 and my outbound flight to London Luton airport left at 06:00. I would have only reached a city centre hotel by 00:00 and then had to leave it at 03:00, which felt a little wasteful.
There was an hour left in the landside McDonalds before it closed, so I used that opportunity to get a little snack and charge my devices up. Although, it transpired that there were numerous power outlets dotted around the landside area of the terminal.
Very Christmassy.
It was all a bit decadent for me, but they’d certainly made an effort with their Christmas decorations.
I had a little meander around the airport to pass the time, watching an Irish passenger having an argument with the armed airport police after they told him not to leave his bag unattended. They won that argument with their line “would you like to discuss this in an interview room?” in perfect English, which I felt was suitably friendly and he backed down.
I bought these from the shop as breakfast as the lounge didn’t open until 05:00 and it’s the other end of the airport from my gate, so I didn’t want to risk it.
I was one of the first people through to the airside area.
Who needs sleep when you can explore a mostly closed airside terminal?
I found a seat with a power outlet and made a determined effort not to fall asleep and miss my flight. There were clear announcements from the gate staff and the boarding process was once again clearly signed and operated efficiently.
The aircraft was around a five minute bus journey from the terminal, it wasn’t the most pleasant of transfers given how many people they’d shoved on the bus. It felt a little endless and I’m sure we went via the city centre.
It was aircraft registration 9H-WNW, another new plane for me. The seating Gods had given me an aisle seat and I decided that I would now have a little nap on the flight home. Everything went to plan with the flight, with helpful crew, clear updates from the pilots and the aircraft was clean and tidy.
With that, it was a walk to Luton Airport Parkway railway station, the one that I’ve decided is the worst run in the country, before getting a train to St. Alban’s, confusing the gateline staff, then returning to Norwich via London, Cambridge and Ely. All really rather lovely and that was the end of my travels for the year…..
