I had taken the train earlier on in the day to get to the centre of Bucharest, but I decided to get the 100 bus back again to the airport. It costs around 60p and it’s easy to pay as it’s contactless. There’s my bag, looking nearly new.
I think what this sign was saying was:
“100 years since the presentation on 16 October 1910 at the Aeronautical Salon held at the Grand Palais in Paris of the Coandă-1910, the world’s first jet aircraft, without a propeller, powered by reactive propulsion, invented and built by the Romanian engineer Henri Coandă (1886–1972).”
Rather splendidly, the snack sign has managed to obscure the key bit, which is perhaps not quite what memorial plaques dream of when they imagine posterity.
I waited landside for a little while and there was minimal seating available, but they had a restaurant area that was not proving popular judging by the lack of customers. I’m not entirely sure they’re made clear what the offering is here, other than some generic beer.
It was time to head to security and I was through in a few minutes. The passenger in front of me had a two litre bottle of water in the side of their bag, I’m pleased to say that this was noticed and removed from them.
Mine was the 20:25 flight. There are no Priority Pass lounges in Bucharest, but I found a quiet spot to sit and treated myself to a £1.60 bottle of Fanta from the vending machine. Well, once I had worked it out, I find vending machines often quite complex and I rarely use them.
A view out of the window of the terminal. I had some time to do this whilst meandering around.
Safely at the gate. I decided to break my usual norm of boarding early to board towards the end, not least as I was sitting by a power socket and wanted my phone fully charged. Boarding towards the end feels a little more exciting, there was some tension from angry customers who couldn’t get their bags to fit in the sizer. One customer pushed his bag in so hard that he couldn’t get it out, but the friendly gate agent helped him, although the wheel from his bag went flying.
The seating Gods had given me a middle seat and I thought that I was lucky as no-one sat in the window seat by the time that the aircraft doors were shut. Then someone comes and takes the seat, but he asks me if I would move back ten rows and swap with his brother who had the window seat.
I said that it was a bit late, as we were about to start taxiing down the runway, but I would move after take-off. As the man in the aisle seat was annoying me by stretching his elbows and I have limited patience, I suggested moving immediately after the seatbelt lights were turned off. The guy in the window seat seemed pleased and he went with me to where his brother was sitting.
I sort of got the impression that this was like me moving my friend Liam from his window seat to sit with me in the middle seat. The brother didn’t look thrilled to move from a window to a middle seat, he left his water and he looked confused. Whether or not the two brothers were happy, I don’t know, but I didn’t care, I had a nice window seat. And that’s Budapest in the photo.
The aircraft was HA-LXW and we didn’t just fly over Budapest, we also flew over Bratislava. This is yet another aircraft that I haven’t been on before, although it has been in service since 2017.
We flew over Cologne before landing so I got to see the city from the air and it’s the first time that I’ve been here.
And safely into Cologne. We were on time and I was once again pleased with the flight, which had cost me £9. The crew were personable, the service was efficient and the aircraft was clean. The consistency really does impress me with Wizz Air and it won’t surprise anyone (not that anyone is likely to much care) that I intend to fly with them again.