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.

“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.

I’m not sure I need to write too much about Warsaw Chopin Airport given that this is not short on content about the building. There are only so many times I can photograph the same airport before it starts to feel less like travel writing and more like a long-term monitoring project. Still, here we are again (as a friend would say), because I am nothing if not thorough about documenting the movement of myself through transport infrastructure.

It was busy though and my usual security entrance was closed due to the number of passengers, but there’s another entrance further down into the terminal and that was quieter.

The lounge was busy, but I was able to get a high table next to a power point, which seems to be something of a theme this week. Anyway, the chicken and carrots were rather lovely, alongside beer, Fanta and coffee. I know how to live. Not extravagantly, perhaps, but with a balanced approach to liquids.

And some salad.

I gave myself twenty minutes to get from the lounge to the gate. I hadn’t realised that the gate was literally ten metres away, it’s there on the left and the lounge entrance is on the right.

There was a long queue to get into the lounge, which says quite a lot about how airport lounge access has changed. I’m afraid there are now too many people doing what I’m doing, although possibly with more sensible travel times and fewer self-imposed routing experiments. Lounge usage is more popular than the space allocated for it, and given that there are four airport lounges at Warsaw Chopin, with two reserved more for legacy airlines, it is an indication of their popularity. The modern airport lounge is no longer a tranquil refuge. It is now a competitive seating environment with pastries.

I don’t normally pay any attention to what the weather will be like in a destination as I neither care nor worry about it. However, it was hard not to note the temperature in Bilbao and so, as ever, I was pre-annoyed. This is one of my more efficient emotional states, allowing me to be irritated before the actual inconvenience has occurred.

I wasn’t surprised that it was a bus to the aircraft.

The aircraft was 9H-WBE which was a new one for me and I’d add that I do realise this interests no-one else, but I like to keep a record for me. Some people collect records, some collect art and I apparently have a register of Wizz Air aircraft registrations, but I suppose we all find meaning where we can.

The seating Gods had allocated me an aisle seat which had pleased me greatly.

As for the flight, which I often find myself writing less about, it was once again operated professionally by Wizz Air and the crew were friendly, engaging and helpful. I noticed that the elderly guy sitting next to me had his wife on an aisle seat a few rows up and I decided to be pro-active and helpful offering to swap. That pleased them, so that was my good deed done for the day. I like to get these things completed efficiently so I can return to my normal programme of mild judgement and annoyance.

A decent number of passengers purchased food and drink from the crew and they completed a few pass-throughs of the cabin. One element of people watching is to see how passengers manage when they’re stuck behind the cart. Some are casual and accept their fate. Some try to calculate whether they can edge past without making physical contact with half the cabin. Others simply stand there looking deeply annoyed, as though the trolley has violated a principle of natural justice.

I suggest the best approach is to be inwardly annoyed but outwardly calm, looking at one’s phone as though entirely unfazed by the matter. This allows a person to maintain dignity while still experiencing a full internal complaint process. It is a very British arrangement, even when not in Britain.

As this was a Schengen flight there was no border control and so the whole process of getting through the airport was quick and efficient. I then had problems with finding the bus and ended up at the tourist information office to get help, but more of that in the next riveting instalment….. I appreciate that “Julian struggles to locate bus” may not sound like peak travel literature, but I have built entire posts on less. At least the flight had gone well, the aisle seat had been secured and my brief Warsaw visit had ended with chicken, a power point and a new aircraft registration for the personal archive. That feels like a perfectly respectable little arrangement for under £9.

After my little beach walk in the morning, it was time to return to Faro Airport just a few hours after arriving there. And, I will admit that the planning element of all of this was a little sub-optimal. I had flown from Norwich to Faro as the Ryanair flight was very cheap and I noticed I could then fly from Faro to Warsaw with the last minute flight availability from my Wizz Air Multipass. I like Warsaw, as I might have mentioned, so my plan was to spend some time there.

That was until I saw the hotel prices, which have been becoming consistently high over recent months. Warsaw has clearly worked out that I like it and is now attempting to monetise the emotional relationship. I then noticed that there was a flight from Warsaw to Bilbao, which is where I planned to spend a few days. So the new arrangement became Faro to Warsaw, then Warsaw to Bilbao, which looked perfectly sensible on a screen and slightly less sensible when exposed to time, distance and human comfort. Anyway, travel is about the journey and not the destination.

So the issue was that I had managed to not really think through the fact that the flight from Faro to Warsaw was four hours in length and then I discovered that the seating Gods had given me a middle seat. This flight was looking a little less appealing, especially as I knew that I was flying back to Spain the next day.

This is where rail ticketing needs to improve across countries, it’s just too expensive at the moment and I ideally like to use trains. But it was going to cost me £18 to get from Faro to Bilbao (via Warsaw) which also gave me two lounge accesses. Google informed me that to get from Faro to Bilbao by rail required six trains, would take over 28 hours and would cost somewhere around £150.

Security at Faro was efficient from a staffing perspective, but I was slightly inwardly annoyed that the passenger in front of me didn’t know that liquids needed to go in their own bag. This has been the rule for over a decade so perhaps I should be fair. There then followed five minutes while she located her various liquids spread across three bags, as though she had prepared a small toiletries treasure hunt for the benefit of airport security. I remained outwardly calm, which is one of my lesser-known heroic qualities.

Anyway, after that, I got to turn right at the above sign for the first time, which means that I was heading from the Schengen area. Last time I went left and was faced with long queues due to border control requirements.

I could see the non-Schengen area and the queues didn’t actually look too bad, although I still preferred the Schengen option of not needing to show a passport.

I then popped to the lounge, but I wittered on about that separately.

There were plenty of seats in the terminal, there were numerous power points and it all felt relaxed.

We were departing from Gate 220 and the whole process was well managed and it was clear where the priority and non-priority passengers needed to wait. The staff here seemed rather laid-back and I noticed that they weren’t checking bag sizes.

The boarding process was all well managed and we weren’t in the extreme Portuguese heat for long. Did I mention that it was too hot? The aircraft was 9H-WDX which I’ve been on twice before, although as it’s part of their Polish fleet, that’s perhaps not entirely unsurprising. The crew were Polish and were impeccable in terms of their friendliness during the flight.

The middle seat arrangement isn’t ideal, but wasn’t problematic and I managed to combine sleeping with watching YouTube videos to make the time go a little quicker. The aircraft was clean, the pilots were professional and we arrived into Warsaw a few minutes ahead of schedule.

Oh good, a packed bus from the aircraft to the airport. Although I was a little time restricted as I needed to cross Warsaw, I knew that there was no border control and so I would be able to get on the train quickly enough. That transpired to be true, it took eight minutes from getting to the terminal to getting on the train, which included buying a ticket from the machine.

Overall, this flight cost me £9 and everything went as expected, so I was pleased with the whole arrangement. It’s rare that I get the middle seat allocated and the flight was relatively full, but there are worse things that can happen. Once again, I thought that Wizz Air’s operation was all well managed and I was delighted to be back in Warsaw, even if just for one night. It might not have been the most logical routing, but it was cheap, efficient and let me continue my little adventure.

One of the slight annoyances about Skopje Airport is that I couldn’t complete online check-in in advance, I had to go and see a staff member at the Wizz Air check-in desk to check documents. Despite checking, the staff member at the check-in desks for earlier flights couldn’t check my documents, but he did tell me what desk would be opening and when so that I wouldn’t have to wait in a queue when my flight did open.

It wasn’t the busiest of airports.

The helpful check-in agent told me to wait at precisely this spot at a particular time. I looked like a very experienced traveller at this point and a number of people started to queue behind me.

It worked, it meant I was at the front of the queue and was the first one through the security area and that meant I could have more time in the Primeclass lounge. I accept that there’s more to life than a free coffee and beer in an airport lounge, but there’s no point lingering about when that’s available.

The signage, as ever for Wizz Air, was clear and there wasn’t long to wait despite the aircraft having been delayed.

The aircraft was G-WUKY and this is the same aircraft that I was on two days before that got me here.

This will interest no-one other than me, although that’s true for this blog in general, but not only was it the same aircraft but it was also the same row. This photo from my previous flight shows the window seat I had this time, so that’s handy planning in blog imagery terms. Some people arrange their lives around career development, relationships or spiritual growth. I appear to have reached the stage where I am pleased by the efficient reuse of an aircraft seating photograph.

Wizz Air are very good at keeping the cabin relatively dark on late evening flights, they do their usual run of food and drink, but they did it quietly and try to avoid disturbing passengers. I was happy with my randomly allocated window seat as I fell asleep for half the flight.

And safely back into London Luton airport and it was pretty much on-time as the padded schedule had enabled them to catch up. Unusually, there were very long queues for non-UK passport holders, I was through the border in under five minutes but it would have been a longer wait for those without UK or EU passports.

Anyway, this was another £8.99 flight with Wizz Air where I was suitably delighted with the whole arrangement. The aircraft was clean, the crew were friendly, everything was just about on time and it was a stress free experience.

Another journey from Luton Airport, so another little snack at Big Smoke, this time the hot honey chicken tenders and a 0% Guinness. All very agreeable and a suitably balanced pre-flight meal.

And that’s the end of Avalon, the little coffee shop, which apparently had closed just a few hours before. It was always a slightly quirky arrangement with some odd food and drink options, limited seating but always friendly staff. There appears to be a new Costa coming, which I can’t say delights me, but if that’s what the passengers of Luton Airport want, then so be it.

My Lounge and the exciting beer option of 0% Heineken, although you’re only allowed half a bottle at a time. I thought half a bottle was perfectly sufficient.

For about the first time I can remember, the cutlery was clean here. It wasn’t overly busy, this is a perfectly acceptable arrangement although for those not on Priority Pass or similar scheme, it’s expensive to enter for what is offered.

“Plane on the way” means that it hasn’t arrived yet, but they’ll start the boarding process. Efficiency is important and all that, although they called the gate ten minutes early which felt aspirational.

And here it is, sweeping in majestically, which is perhaps overstating the romance of a Wizz Air aircraft at Luton, but one must take glamour where one can find it.

I have a temporary bag which isn’t very rufty tufty so isn’t going to be used for long on these expeditions, I’ll be repurposing it for LDWA challenge events at some point, where it can enjoy a quieter life being shoved into village halls and checkpoint corners rather than exposed to the brutal glamour of low-cost aviation.

The aircraft was G-WUKY which is yet another one that I haven’t been on.

The seating Gods not only gave me an aisle seat, but the other two seats in the row weren’t occupied during the flight.

The prices are slowly creeping up, but they don’t feel unreasonable.

And the sandwich prices. These are very much for the more wealthy people, it’s something that my friend Richard would order if on board, as he has the quiet confidence of a man who knows society needs people willing to keep the premium sandwich sector alive. And actually the premium sector everything…..

Bearing in mind that I had a row to myself, the flight itself was relatively busy. As usual, this was another nicely operated flight with a friendly cabin crew, a clean aircraft and clear announcements from the pilots. No-one applauded when the aircraft landed and there were no issues of note during the flight, so I was once again impressed. Bearing in mind that I had only paid £8.99 for the flight, I felt particularly delighted and the fifteen minute late departure was caught up and we landed five minutes early. That’s the joy of padded schedules…..

There were no more photos as the whole airport arrangement was far more efficient than I had anticipated. Border control took two minutes as there was no stamping of passports just a vague look inside and the airport was clearly laid out. Unusually for me, as I usually get a cheap bus, I had a shuttle from the hotel and that turned up just as I arrived outside. That means I was in a car within fifteen minutes of landing, so I didn’t have a chance to take photos. This efficiency does, admittedly, leave the blog slightly short of content, which is awkward given that the blog is rarely overburdened with plot at the best of times.

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.

My journey back home from Dortmund started at Dortmund Stadthaus metro station and all was going well at this point. Until I tried to buy a ticket and the card machine elements of the ticket machines were all down and not working. This I considered sub-optimal as I don’t carry cash partly as this is the 21st century and partly because I have a reckless optimism that ticket machines will work. However, in Lübeck I found 5 euros on the floor by the river and I suspected that, in a similar way to how computer adventure games work, that it would come in useful. And that was very much the case here, I used cash to buy my ticket and that saved me a thirty minute meander to the city’s central railway station.

There’s the ticket validation machine and so I was good to go.

I needed Aplerbeck and there was only a short wait for the U47 to turn up.

A wait of five minutes to be precise.

And here it comes, all as expected.

I’ve posted about this journey before, but the metro stops at Aplerbeck and then passengers get a bus to the airport.

And in what I think is the premium seat for a passenger to look out of the window. Well, in the absence of being the bus driver of course. There aren’t many limits to my ambitions, but becoming a bus driver is one of them.

There’s no lounge at the airport, but there is a McDonald’s just a five minute walk away and I had a free coffee on my app, so I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. They also have power points and, as usual, I wanted to be fully charged given that’s one of my travel priorities.

I had a relaxing ninety minutes at McDonald’s, bringing this blog up-to-date with about 65 ‘riveting’ posts about Lübeck. I use the word riveting advisedly, as some readers may not have known they needed detailed commentary on churches, airports, museums, railway stations and toilet pricing.

Safely at the airport, which is really too small for the number of passengers that it gets.

An interesting place to put a hopscotch game for kids in the middle of the queueing aisle. Nothing says efficient passenger flow quite like inviting small children to begin a structured jumping activity where everyone is already trying to stand.

This is the downstairs area at Dortmund Airport which is short of seating space, poorly signed and only designed for non-Schengen flights in some sort of bid to test passenger resilience. However, I found a seat and prepared myself for the two hour wait for the flight, which at this point was delayed by half an hour. Anyway, my planned comfortable arrangement changed and I needed to find a police officer, but more in part two (who says I can’t build tension on this blog?).

In a new and ‘riveting’ series of posts that will amuse me and likely no-one else, I’ve been looking at the reviews of Wizz Air on Trustpilot. As a website, Trustpilot seems fundamentally flawed that companies that pay them nearly always have very good reviews, but there we go.

There are plenty of entirely valid reasons to criticise Wizz Air, and nobody who has ever willingly sat at Luton Airport departure lounge at 04:40 should perhaps pretend otherwise. But some of the reviews are also a useful reminder that budget airlines operate on a fairly brutal bargain which is that the fare is low because almost everything else is governed by rules, fees and small print. That does not mean passengers deserve poor service, delays or confusion, but it does mean there is a certain amount of personal responsibility involved in reading what has been booked, checking baggage allowances, understanding airport check-in requirements and not assuming that a £19 flight comes with the emotional warmth of the sort of country house hotel that my friend Richard would book.

“I would leave no star, but doesn’t allow me. I travel with a suitcase that has official size. Not for wizzair. Paid a premium seat that included the carry-on bag. Then my bag was measured by the rudest staff at Barajas in Madrid. They must recruit on level of bitterness and rudeness. My god they nail it. So my bag stuck out 2 cm. And soft. So if you squeeze it may be is fine. HAs been fine everywhere. another 75 euros later… I was charged because it was not supposed to fit. Clearly custom airbus with special bag specifications for wizzair. On board staff allowed it on as i went in overhead compartment no problem. They came after me to take bag down. And plane is half empty. Not surprised. Between delays and rudeness don’t fly wizzair!!!!”

So the bag was two centimetres too big. The personal bag maximum is 40 * 30 * 20 with Wizz Air which is the same as Ryanair and incidentally, with BA it’s 40 * 30 * 15. Top tip here, don’t bring a bag more than 40 * 30 * 20 and Wizz Air doesn’t charge which seems like a fair deal…. And I’d be surprised at a half empty plane, Wizz Air has 93% occupancy and Ryanair is 94%.

“The worst airline I have ever been. I always travel all around the world with my backpack that fits in the cabin. The only place where they forced me to get my backpack out and pay for it was wizz air. I will never travel with them again”

I’d worry less about it fitting in the cabin and more about the bag sizer….

“The worst airlines servicein the world, it should be closed ASAP, so my issue: I bought 23 kg check-in bag for my short flight (1.5h), I came there without 23 kg baggage, but I came with 8 kg small cabin bag, they said I should buy a cabin bag extra, I said them that I don’t have any check in bags, what isthe problem, I’m doing it for you so not overloading the plane with actually weight. They asked me to pay 75€ euro extra or it would be not possible me to go to the plane. That’s so unprofessional and so disrespectful for people who is buying this fckng tickets to travel”

So they booked a checked-in bag, didn’t check it in and then get to the plane with it and wonder why they’re charged….

“I was charged €73 euros per 10kg case as we were told at the boarding gate we should have checked it in to go in the hold! Nowhere did we see that when you check-in on line you should then leave your 10kg (cabin bag) at check in when you arrive at the airport for it to go in the hold!!”

It’s on the website and when checking in, where else are they supposed to put this information?

“Normally, if you don’t choose seats, airlines still put you and your partner together, if there is space. Wizzair separates everyone out of spite.”

Welcome to the world of budget airlines.

“Robbed! I have travelled for 39 countries. Couple of hundred cities. Countless flights and I had NEVER been robbed like I was by WIZZ. They charged us 106€ for not making an online checkin. I’ll repeat 106€ for making our checkin at the airport counter. THIEVES!! Don’t ever fly with WIZZ”

Budget airlines in the US, Asia and Europe all charge for boarding passes at the airport, this customer has done well to somehow avoid them and somehow miss the heap of warnings during the Wizz Air booking process.

“I arrived at the airport 2 hours before my flight. I checked my luggage without any hassle and went through security to get to the gate to board the plane. The lines were endless but I managed to get out of security and into the gate before the plane 20minutes before departure. I ran to where I was stopped and was told by an employee in stuttering English that the gate was already closed and I could not board 20 minutes before the plane was due to depart. I was not explained why or given any real reason.”

The reason is that the gate closes thirty minutes before the flight. I’ve been on Wizz Air flights where the aircraft doors are closed and the flight fully boarded twenty minutes before departure.

“Absolutely terrible experience with Wizz Air. On the outbound flight, the exact same hand luggage was accepted without any issue. On the return flight from Nuremberg to Skopje, I suddenly had to pay €70 extra for the very same bag.

This feels like pure rip-off and completely arbitrary. Either the rules apply consistently, or they don’t. Letting customers fly one way with the same hand luggage and then charging them heavily on the return flight is unacceptable.”

Unsurprisingly, it is possible to board with a bag that’s too big and if they checked every bag every time I can imagine the surprised and delighted customers.

“This is a scam airlines! Never use this for your travel as they actually show a cheap ticket which people buy it but at the end of the travel with all the extras they are the expensive ones.”

Don’t buy the bloody extras then.

“During the flight, two flight attendants seated at the front were speaking extremely loudly for an extended period, which made it difficult to relax. I politely approached them and kindly asked if they could lower their voices a bit, as it was quite disturbing. Unfortunately, their response was very unprofessional and rude. One of them replied dismissively, saying, “this is my working space,” without showing any consideration or basic customer service. Both of them had an unfriendly attitude and made me feel uncomfortable for simply making a reasonable request.”

Fair ply to the customer for telling the crew that, I’m not sure that I would have dared done that.

This is not about sneering at unhappy customers, this is more about the strange little gap between what people buy and what they appear to think they have bought. Those that want decadence really should fly with a full service airline or at least read the rules…..