210-213 Austria and Slovakia 2023

210 Edinburgh-Amsterdam (KLM): Once again I decided to keep KLM on their toes by booking the lunchtime flight for a change, meaning a relaxed morning making my way out to EDI. The airport was a little busier than I expected for lunchtime on a Thursday, but security was quick and organised as always. A last minute trip to the bookshop turned out to be a particularly protracted affair, with the only assistant boring the arse off the customer in front of me with a lengthy explanation of how distributors choose what books go to what store. I only wanted a postcard for my Airbnb host for my traditional thank you note, having forgotten to pick one up earlier in the week.

Flight was pretty busy, including a young family in the row behind me who needed a gentle reminder from the cabin crew to please stop fucking around deciding what bags you needed for take-off and sit the fuck down with your kid so she could signal the cabin was ready for departure. Sorry, but if you decide to have children then you have to accept that you just cannot travel for the next ten years, or that the vast majority of your fellow passengers are going to utterly despise you. Today we had the cheese sandwiches, which I accepted before remembering I was trying to avoid eating too much for a very good reason.

211 Amsterdam-Vienna (KLM): Schipol wasn’t particularly busy on arrival, and as I had over four hours transit time I was able to meander around the shops a little and take my time getting through the Schengen border. And as I had such a long transit time on this trip, I had decided to finally treat myself to the KLM Crown Lounges en route (motivated slightly by the 25% discount I now received thanks to my silver status). My only previous lounge experiences had ranged from dismal at the Swissport lounge in GNV to very good at the new Aspire lounge in EDI; hopefully I could expect more of the latter than the former.

Having found the lounge, getting access was straightforward enough, all I had to do was scan my boarding pass at the entrance. This was the smaller of the two Crown Lounges at Schipol, and I was slightly worried that it would be a little busy, but it was actually barely a third occupied. The area was a fair size, with a nice mix of seating, a bar area, hot and cold buffets and some coffee shops. That said, some of the fixtures and fittings were a bit worn out, with some ripped seats, carpet stains and blocked toilets. I plumped for a big, unripped comfy armchair, dumped my bag (I presumed the usual concerns about leaving your stuff lying around in airports didn’t apply in a lounge) and immediately headed for the bar and poured myself a respectable glass of Heineken. Encouraged by my non-foamy success, I soon headed back for a second, along with a whisky soda. Seeing all the self-serve optics made me wish I’d brought my water bottle, although it was only Teacher’s.

There was a reason for the blistering drinking pace, as I wanted plenty of time to potentially sober up a little before departure, so I had resolved to only drink for the first hour or so, (although obviously I wanted to get my thirty quid’s worth!). Pleasantly relaxed by a few drinks and having enjoyed a bit of my book, I decided to head for the hot buffet. The selection was ok at first glance, but closer inspection showed the offerings in the large bowls wasn’t what you might have hoped; the penne bolognese was just very dry, meatless pasta, and the sweet and sour chicken was essentially a bowl of green beans which needed a magnifying glass to find any chicken in. And after heaping my little plate with as much as I could balance on it, I also found it was all pretty lukewarm. The curry soup was nice though, and I took a few bowls of that. I sampled the cold buffet after, which was a decent selection of meat and cheese, breads, salads and vegetables. Plus some brownies and donuts, which I should have left alone but obviously did not. Twice. And after having spent a few hours trying to get my money’s worth in food and drink, I was happy to retire to a quiet corner and continue with my book for the remainder of my visit, especially as the lounge was starting to fill up considerably. Much better than GNV, not quite as good as EDI.

Wined and dined after a few hours in the lounge, I headed for my evening flight to Vienna. Opted for an aisle seat, as I didn’t think the views on my 10:20 pm arrival would be particularly interesting, plus I wanted a quick deplaning in order to head to try and reach my hotel before midnight. Another cheese sandwich was on offer, which I didn’t need at this stage, and the flight was pretty uneventful otherwise.

Had only visited VIE once eight years previously, so I didn’t remember much about the layout. What I had forgotten was how utterly spotless the place was. The luggage was available pretty quickly after landing and I was through arrivals in plenty of time for my super-cautious 23:19 train booking to the city. Although almost all of the shops, cafes and restaurants were closed at this time, I took the opportunity to do a bit of scouting for my pre-departure shopping next week.

212 Vienna-Amsterdam (KLM): For the return to VIE I didn’t bother going through the city, instead opting for a direct Flixbus from Most SNP in Bratislava. The journey was a little less lively than the bus to Bratislava a few days earlier, when the booking computer had placed me in the middle of a German hen night, who had happily shared some schnapps and snogs en route. I was a little too cautious in the timing of the booking, arriving at VIE well ahead of time. But at least this meant I could get a few more radlers for my checked bag and a belated first schnitzel from the airport supermarket. There was a brief flashpoint at the check-in counter, when the agent realised the French couple in front of me were not entitled to be using the priority bag drop, and gave them a good scolding in front of the lengthy queue. Security was a scoosh, leaving plenty of time to browse the retail options. Picked up a few gifts for friends and family, and I was also tempted by an ice-cold glass of lager at the little bar beside my gate.  

The flight was one of those ‘lawless’ ones where it seemed nobody cared about anything. The passenger behind me had somehow gotten a carry-on bag the size of a coffin onboard, which was so big it barely fit under the seat in front of me, before the cabin crew advised it would be a lot better in the luggage bin. A woman in the row in front of me had to be told three times to put her tray table up before landing, and then put it back down again anyway as soon as the cabin crew were seated. Sandwiches were cheese again, but this time I remembered to turn mine down to save my appetite for the Crown Lounge again.

213 Amsterdam-Edinburgh (KLM): Today I had an even longer transit time of over five hours, which had made me wonder about maybe leaving the airport for a flying visit to Amsterdam, Haarlem or even Zandvoort. But then I remembered I had bought a bottle of schnapps at VIE, which I would now lose if I left the airport and then had to go back through security, so that plan had to be scrapped. The queue at the border was non-existent, (which was most un Schipol-like), on the one day I was in no rush whatsoever.

The non-Schengen Crown Lounge was at least twice the size of the Schengen one I had visited last week. This time I would have to eat and drink even more in order to get my forty-two quid’s worth. Despite the bigger size, everything else was pretty much the same as the other one with a few additional perks; the bar had zero-alcohol Heineken, (which was served in a glass with a massive chunk out of the rim), and there was an outdoors terrace to enjoy your drink in the sunshine (which was closed). The hot buffet was barely warm again. This I could put up with, but what I could not deal with was the incessant background music. I couldn’t remember if there had been music in the other lounge last week, but wherever I went today I could not escape it, roaming endlessly from one end of the lounge to the other with my book and beer trying to find a quiet spot. Eventually I gave up and left the lounge after only ninety minutes, and opted for a quiet corner of the airport library on Holland Boulevard instead. 

Flight home was fine (cheese yet again), but as always EDI had some late night ineptitude to show us on arrival. This time it was the ‘no gate agent to lead us to the terminal’ routine, which I’ve already had a few times. As the minutes ticked by and we waited impatiently on the aircraft to deplane, I could see the luggage was already being unloaded; at least someone was getting off the fucking aircraft. Fifteen minutes later a member of ground staff eventually arrived to guide us from our aircraft that had arrived exactly when it had been expected to. At least there was no queue at the border, which led to everyone ducking under all the barriers en masse towards the egates, much to the annoyance of the one airport worker who was trying to control us. If I could arrive at any other airport I would.

208-209 Germany 2023

Edinburgh=Berlin (Easyjet): I’m no monarchist, however, I was more than happy to accept the gift of an extra bank holiday to celebrate the coronation of King Charles. Once again, the airport was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday morning on a bank holiday weekend, and this week there were no random stag parties on the Berlin flight. There was however a hipster twat in a Partick Thistle tracksuit top and brogues, who I immediately despised. There was also a particularly tall gentleman behind me who spent almost the entire flight trying to massage my lower back through the seat with his knees. Suffice to say I was happy to finally arrive at BER for the first time two hours later. 

First impressions of the airport was that it was also fairly quiet for a Saturday. The border was well staffed and only took a few minutes to get through, one of the main criteria I have in judging any new airport. ONce through security things were a little more confusing, with an endless variety of signs directing you to the various public transport options. I didn’t feel these were particularly clear, and there were an awful lot of them. Having finally found my way to the right S-Bahn, I then found that it was only going a few stops because of construction work. This meant getting off and finding my way across town in a combination of buses and U-Bahn. As I boarded the first of the buses, I was delighted to spot the hipster Partick fan getting on the same bus, pleading with the driver to tell him how he could get to the Olympiastadion for the Hertha game. Knew he was a tosser.

Berlin-Edinburgh (Easyjet): Let’s get this out the way straight off the bat. I know airports are expensive, but sixteen Euros for some currywurst, fries and a coke is fucking ridiculous. Anyway, we’ll come back to that…

Having realised I could get the Regional Bahn back to BER, the return journey was considerably more straightforward. I hadn’t taken much time to explore the new airport on arrival, so I was a little early in order to have a look around. Again, it wasn’t particularly busy, and I wandered around to take a few photos  before heading to security, which was fairly quick and easy. The shopping and retail options were pretty decent, and I decided on a little meal from the food court on the upper level, where I was robbed in broad daylight for some very ordinary currywurst at a not very busy restaurant that somehow still took ten minutes. On the plus side, there were plenty of beers available to buy in the various shops, and I managed to squeeze four Berliner Kindls in my little backpack. One of the best features of the airport was that each gate had a little charging station with enough USB 2.0, USB C and lightning cables for ten phones. However, nobody could use the one at our gate as some fucking clown unplugged it from the wall to charge his laptop. 

The flight back was uneventful, but EDI had one more unpleasant surprise in store for us upon arrival. After last month’s fiasco when there was no ground staff to let us off the aircraft for twenty minutes, today the ground staff was present but didn’t open all the doors to allow us to proceed through to the border. With 140 passengers standing in a corridor before a locked door for fifteen minutes, someone somewhere realised our plight and finally opened the door. You have to hand it to EDI, every time they find new and innovative ways to fuck up the most basic airport operations….

206-207 Switzerland, France 2023

Edinburgh-Geneva (Easyjet): After the KLM flight to Amsterdam, the Easyjet flight to Geneva must be my second most travelled route. EDI wasn’t as busy as I might have expected for a Saturday morning on a bank holiday weekend. Having gotten through security without any fuss, I found my usual quiet spot out on the East pier, where I noted with alarm that there was a large stag party about to board the morning flight to Berlin at Gate 18. Since I would be getting on the same flight next Saturday morning, I hoped this wasn’t something I’d be seeing next week. Whilst waiting to board, for some reason I randomly decided to buy my first ever copy of National Geographic from the newsagents.

Once onboard I was delighted to find that, despite being a fairly busy flight, I had achieved the holy grail of an empty row. There was a little bit of pre-flight chaos before we got under way though. Firstly, there was an argument involving someone in the exit row behind me, who objected to being told to put their bags and coats in the locker for takeoff. Then a young man decided to move seats before takeoff, earning a stern lecture on weight and balance from the crew. With all these issues, shoutout to veteran cabin manager Julie, a no-nonsense ginger weegie who was taking no shit from anyone and soon put everyone in their place (literally!). There was also a slight departute delay due to the ongoing French air traffic controllers strikes. As the captain pointed out, it would be hard for us to get to Switzerland without flying over France, but they would do their best to make up the time en route.

In recent months I’ve been tending towards booking aisle seats, as I’ve seen (and filmed) most of Europe from the air by now. Plus I don’t trust my ageing bladder to last two hours. But I’ll always make an exception for flying into Geneva, which is always great for the views. And having an empty row, (along with easy toilet access), I decided to treat myself to a beer. Easyjet were now stocking Jubel, a peach lager which I’d had the pleasure of sampling when the rep had come into my local recently. With an empty row, fruity lager and stunning mountain views, the flight was about as pleasant as it could be.

When we arrived at GNV last year I had seen the new terminal building that had been built since my last visit pre-Covid. I had a lot more time to admire it this time, as the queue for the border was pretty lengthy. In fact, it was so lengthy that I was starting to get seriously worried about making my connection across town to Annemasse and my train onwards into the Alps. Twenty-five minutes later though and I was through, and was heading into town with just enough time to briefly admire Lac Leman en route to France.

Geneva=Edinburgh (Easyjet): After a pleasant few hours in the Geneva sunshine, it was time to head back to GNV for my flight. Security was pretty quick, and might have been even faster if the woman in front of me hadn’t been trying to enter the security area by scanning the barcode on her luggage receipt stuck to the back of her passport. How do some people even get dressed in the morning, let alone travel to another country…

The last time I’d departed from here I’d had the dubious pleasure of Swissport’s underwhelming lounge. Today I would have to entertain myself, and was reminded how appallingly expensive this airport was. Fortunately I’d had the foresight to purchase a sandwich and snacks from Lidl in the city before heading out here, but I still had to fork out £4 for a bottle of water. After boarding, by some miracle I found that once again I had achieved the holy grail of an empty row. This meant another can of Jubel for the flight home, which was otherwise uneventful.

202-203 Spain 2023

Edinburgh-Madrid (Easyjet); I was pretty annoyed when my original flight for this was cancelled and I was rebooked onto one the day before. An extra night’s accommodation to pay for, another day of spending money to add to the budget and another valuable day of annual leave swallowed up. That said, come the day of the flight, I wasn’t terribly unhappy to be travelling just after lunch on a thursday rather than a dawn departure on a friday, so maybe the change was no bad thing.

EDI was a bit busier than I might have expected for the time and day of departure. And unlike the dozzy heights of my last trip, there was no lounge access or business upgrades today, just a Boots sandwich in a quiet corner and waiting for the gate announcement. When it came to boarding, I amused myself by playing Easyjet bingo; original flight cancelled? Yup. Bins full of coats and jackets? Yup. Spurious announcement about someone with a nut allergy onboard? Yup

The flight was fairly full, and it felt even more so with the gentleman sitting beside me having particularly wide knees and elbows. But there were some fine views en route as we hugged the almost perfectly straight line of the French Atlantic coast before crossing the western edge of the Pyrenees. And as it was my birthday trip I treated myself to a can of Rekordilig whilst I enjoyed the views.

Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barejas was a new airport for me, and it was nice to see a few unfamiliar tailfins as we taxiid across the apron. The terminal was pretty big, but not too crowded, with hardly any queue at the border. But once a crowd started building up, extra border officers quickly appeared to alleviate the situation, an absolutely mad idea that will never catch on.

Once through the formalities, finding the metro station to head into town was quite the mission, involving a lengthy hike and a fairly useless information desk assistant. But I got there eventually and managed to work out how to use the ticket machines. There was, however, a brief moment of alarm en route when the first station name didn’t seem to match the network map, but it was all fine.

Santander-Edinburgh (Ryanair): Seve Ballesteros-Santander was another new airport for me, the 50th I’d flown from as it turned out, and the first one I’d had named after a golfer. And very conveneintly located it was too, just a fifteen minute ride from the bus station for a few euros.

Having looked at the flight schedule I wasn’t expecting anything particularly grand or lavish, and I wasn’t disappointed. The terminal building was at least modern, if modest. Security was a matter of minutes, although I was a bit surprised at being asked to take my trainers off. Post-security, there was a small duty-free store and a little cafeteria. Not the smallest airport I’d been in, but definitely on the petite side. Not the most organised either, as once the flight began boarding, the regular queue somehow ended up on the aircraft before the priority one.

The flight was routine, with the only incident of note being two particularly brain-dead flight attendants struggling to understand my seatmate’s request for some chips. I listened with growing exasparation to the exchange, with one of them trying to explain that there was only chips with the chicken nuggets and that they couldn’t be separated. I was almost at the point of screaming SHE MEANS CRISPS FOR FUCKS SAKE, SHE’S SPANISH, THEY CALL THEM CHIPS when dumb and dumber finally got the message, and provided her with a pipe of Pringles.

192-195 Finland 2022 (Litku-show)

192 Edinburgh-Amsterdam (KLM); After a brief respite from the early morning flights it was back to a dawn departure for old faithful, KL1276. I was woken just after 2am by a text from the airline inviting me to check my cabin bag for free as the flight was full. Recent experience had taught me that doing so usually involved a very lengthy queue at EDI, so I should really have already left for the airport by now if I was going to do that. I decided to wait until I got to the airport and could see what the queue was like before checking my cabin bag.

Although it was far from my first 6am departure this was the first one on a Friday that I could remember for a while, meaning that the streets were still pretty full of drunken revellers spilling out of the clubs as I made my way to the bus stop. Luckily their high spirits helped them laugh off the heavy drizzle, but I had no such luck: not even at the airport yet never mind en route to Helsinki and I was already damp and freezing.

The airport wasn’t as busy as I might have expected for a Friday morning, although there was still quite a queue for the bag drop at the KLM/Air France desk, enough to convince me to just head straight up to departures without dropping my cabin bag. Security wasn’t busy yet and neither was the pub, so I had plenty of time for what was now becoming my regular alcohol-free Kopparberg. I was slightly surprised to find we were departing from gate 15 for a change instead of the usual gate 4; this meant that instead of strolling down the airbridge I had to stand in the rain once again at the bottom of the aircraft stairs whilst passengers in front of me grappled with the concept of putting a bag in a locker and standing in from the aisle at the same time.

There was some brief alarm prior to departure when the flight deck announced a brief delay of ten to fifteen minutes due to delays at Schipol. Right now, transiting through Amsterdam with a connection time of less than six hours seemed problematic at best, so any delay that eroded my seventy minutes transit time was not good. There was nothing to be done about it though, so I would just have to sit tight, be patient and try not to worry about what I would do if I missed my connection, which would mean missing my train from Helsinki to Jyvaskyla, which would mean etc etc….the delay was only about ten minutes though, and we were soon in the air and being served the familiar, (but not that great), banana bread, which I politely stashed away in my cabin bag for later; good job I hadn’t checked my bag.

193 Amsterdam-Helsinki (KLM); after the mild concerns about the delayed departure, we arrived at AMS more or less on time. On checking-in I had taken care to pick an aisle seat as close to the front of the aircraft as possible to facilitate a quick deplaning, and I was soon out on the concourse and making a beeline for the passport control to the Schengen area, which I knew would be the major obstacle in making my connection. Surprisingly enough, when I reached the border there wasn’t much of a queue to speak of; I genuinely couldn’t remember it being so quiet in all the times I had transited through Schipol, and on a Friday morning as well? The rather fetching border officer asked me slightly more questions about where I was going and for how long than I would have done, especially considering I was only seeking to enter Schengen from the UK. When she asked me what gig I was going to I politely informed her I was going to see Litku Klemetti at Tanssisali Lutakko in Jyvaskyla, at which point she blinked slightly in confusion, endorsed my document, and I was off to my gate.

When I first went to Finland with KLM I was given a very pleasant little pot of pasta and a cake on the way there. Over the years the meal had slowly been downgraded to the ubiquitous cheese sandwich, (which used to be the snack offering on the flight to/from Edinburgh, and had now been promoted to meal status). Today it wasn’t even a cheese sandwich though, it was the egg mayo, and I didn’t have enough room in my bag to squeeze it in alongside my banana bread ‘for later’. So I gritted my teeth and ate it as quickly as possible, washed down with a can of Heineken. I shouldn’t really complain; at least KLM still fed you, unlike quite a few flag carriers I could mention, (cough cough BA).

Two things I noticed on the aircraft. Firstly, there was wifi onboard, which I couldn’t get to work. Secondly, there were little blue Delft houses painted on the lavatory walls, which I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe this was a newer aircraft. Actually, make that three things, as there were also USB power sockets beneath the seats, which I definitely hadn’t seen before. Maybe there was an article about it in the Holland Herald, but sadly I didn’t have one in my seat pocket. The passenger before me was presumably the only other person apart from me who actually accepts the invitation to take their copy home.

194 Helsinki-Amsterdam (KLM); you never get the text when you actually want it, do you? Once again I had spent too much money on booze at the supermarket during my stay and had several cans left over, and as I made my way to the airport I was hoping to be invited to check my hand baggage so I could get them home. No such luck though, and just like June, I sat outside Helsinki-Vantaa downing can after can as I didn’t want to waste them.

Still, once I was past security, (with the fancy new don’t-take-anything-out-your-bag scanners), I did have some spare money and luggage space, so I was at least able to get a six-pack of Long Drinks and pack them away. As I wandered around the terminal killing time I felt I was now getting the hang of the new layout of HEL, even though it was still mid-construction. It is still an appallingly expensive airport though, and I was glad I would probably be having free lounge access the next time I departed from here in a month or so…

After a long weekend of almost winter-weather in Central Finland, it was frustrating to look out the windows and see that a full snowstorm was now developing outside, just as I was leaving; typical! In an awful lot of airports this would be a major concern, but not here. Another source of frustration was the announcement that they would like passengers to offer to check their hand baggage as the flight was very full; couldn’t they have asked when I was sitting outside getting drunk two hours ago? This time I checked my bag though, as it would be a lot less hassle to carry through Schipol now that it was full of duty free. I then had a brief moment of panic when I remembered that yes actually, I did have a charging device in my bag. Ah well, if we came down, we came down. My bad.

After a brief stop at the de-icing station beside the runways, we were soon in the air and looking forward to our cheese/egg mayo sandwiches, only to be surprised by a hitherto unsuspected option three: vegetable! A slightly odd selection of grilled veg in brown bread, it was actually not too bad (and better than the egg). The wifi still didn’t work though.

195 Amsterdam-Edinburgh (KLM); I had been pleasantly surprised on the outward journey to find that the border at AMS hadn’t been too busy for once, and it was only slightly busier this evening, (albeit with only two of twelve desks actually open). I had plenty of time though so I wasn’t too worried, as it was only an exit check after all. One other passenger wasn’t so relaxed though, a middle-aged woman who eventually decided her flight connection was more important than everyone else’s because she was American and they have special rights and privileges that the rest of the world should automatically know about. As she politely elbowed her way through the queue she met the immovable rock of another middle-aged American woman. An initially terse exchange soon became an all-out nuclear war, Karen vs Karen. Both immediately started calling for police assistance in the self-righteous way Karen’s do, before resorting to the ultimate sanction; ‘I will SUE you honey, I promise you, just wait until you hear from my attorney…’

Eventually a bored-looking Dutch border officer sauntered out from behind his desk to see what the fuss was about, (which now meant we were all getting delayed now, well done ladies!). Quickly sizing up the situation he instructed them in clear terms to simply stay in line and be patient, whilst all his body language screamed ‘what the actual fuck is wrong with you people, just shut the fuck up and stand in fucking line’. Ten minutes later I was through and buying Nijntje goodies and very politely asking strangers to get me some cans of Hertog Jan from the top shelf before the deli closed. I could tell you about the flight but it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining as the near-fight at the border. Cheese, in case you were wondering.

190-191 Iceland 2022

190 Edinburgh-Reykjavik (Easyjet); Usually the traditional Airwaves flight has been accompanied by some sort of special occasion, like being the 100th flight, first trip with a new passport etc. There was no special occasion today though, I was just happy to finally be returning to Reykjavik for the first time after Covid, not to mention attending my first Iceland Airwaves for four years. And to mark the occasion I was treating myself to the rare luxury of a checked bag.

Like last month’s trip to Nimes, this was another afternoon departure, a pleasant change from all the pre-dawn trips to the airport earlier in the year. In fact, the departure time was scheduled for a few hours later than it always had been in the past, which meant the rare luxury of spending the afternoon beforehand just pottering around Stockbridge, buying books and generally relaxing. When I finally made my way out to EDI in the late afternoon the airport was relatively busy for a Sunday afternoon, but it took a mere five minutes to check my bag (one thing about Easyjet, it’s a lot simpler to use their bag drop than it is to queue and check bags with KLM/Air France). And the terminal wasn’t so busy that I couldn’t find a table at Wetherspoons for my pre-departure alcohol-free Kopparberg.

The flight was routine, but there was the usual announcement about having no nut products on board due to a passenger having an allergy; I’ve heard this so many times on Easyjet flights now that I’m convinced that it’s bogus. On arrival I received my first ever Icelandic passport stamp, (thank you Brexit), and made full use of the duty-free store at arrivals to buy a 10-pack of Gull’s Christmas beer before leaving KEF. Once outside I was immediately reminded of how miserable and unhappy a place Iceland can be when it’s wet. And it only took two minutes outside in the driving rain to discover that one of my shoes was apparently leaking, and it would seem that a long, squelchy week might lie ahead.

As it was a while since I’d been here on my own I had to make do with getting into Reykjavik with the airport express bus for a change. And since my apartment was at the far end of Laugavegur I had opted for the additional hotel drop-off service, which I was now mightily glad of when I saw the weather. The instructions for changing buses at BSI weren’t super clear from all involved, but I managed to find my connecting mini-bus at the other side of the terminal building, although there was no driver (or any other passengers). The driver eventually showed up and very helpfully offered to put my bags in the boot, which he then forgot to close when we departed. Luckily another driver managed to attract his attention to this before we went too far and all my beer had spilled out into the road…

191 Reykjavik-Edinburgh (Easyjet); By the end of the week, the leak in my shoe had developed into an almost complete split of the sole from the rest of my shoe. And although my return flight wasn’t until evening I had to check out of the apartment by 11am. This led to a long final afternoon wandering Reykjavik, tripping over my own feet every ten paces or so with a right boot that now looked like a loose flipper. All I could do was hope the damn thing didn’t split completely, and survived long enough to get me on my flight and back home. At least it wasn’t raining anymore. And at one point I found myself skirting the perimeter of the domestic airport, watching the little Bombardiers arriving from around the country (at least one of which decided to go around in near perfect visibility and no wind; weird?)

After hobbling around the city for the day I arrived back at the apartment complex to collect my bags and meet my hotel pick-up at four. I’d been slightly nervous about booking this; what if it didn’t turn up? He hadn’t even remembered to close the boot last week, what chance that he’d remember he was picking anyone up? But the bus appeared on time, and I was en route to KEF with a considerably heavier checked bag than I had arrived with. This was mainly as I still had six cans of my christmas beer left from a week ago, having since discovered all the delicious varieties of 0.0% Bavaria at the local supermarket and drinking that instead. I would have brought more treats back with me but I was nervous about exceeding the weight of my checked baggage allowance; it turned out I still had about 8kg to spare.

Arriving at KEF, I was surprised to find the bag drop wasn’t even open for another 45mins, so I treated myself to a reasonably priced (and fairly tasty) pizza slice from the grocery store while I waited. Having finally dropped my bag and cleared security in just a matter of minutes, I found myself in the enviable position of having time, money and luggage space to enjoy myself at the airport shopping. I took advantage of the duty-free store’s offer of any four cans of beer for 1000kr, as well as the six-for-the-price-of-five deal on miniatures. Having done all this, I then treated myself further to the ultimate extravagance at KEF, a beer at the airport bar. I would have had two but the Polish barmaid (about the 1000th I’d met this week in Reykjavik) politely informed me they were closing in five minutes.

The flight home was routine again, with the same bogus nut allergy announcement. But on arrival back at EDI, I was once again worried about making a mess of using the e-gates and having to go to a desk and get my passport checked by one of my Border Force colleagues. Luckily I got through with no issues, and I was delighted to find my massively underweight checked bag was already waiting for me on the carousel, in a rare show of efficiency by EDI.

188-189 France 2022

188 Edinburgh-Nîmes (Ryanair); After so many early morning, weekend flights this year, it was a pleasure to be heading to the airport late on a Wednesday afternoon for a 5.05pm departure. As expected, the terminal was relatively quiet, (about as quiet as Edinburgh gets just now anyway). Despite all the free time and the rare availability of pub seats I was content to just sit in a quiet corner and wait patiently to find out which gate I would be boarding from. This wait was a little longer than I would have liked, with it finally being announced five minutes before the gate supposedly closed. This made it even more surprising that once boarded, we stood outside for around twenty minutes, waiting to get onto the aircraft. I now realise that paying extra for priority boarding usually means a unique opportunity to stand in the cold longer than any other passengers. Once we were finally allowed onto the aircraft, the cabin was only 20-25% occupied. This meant boarding was completed almost as soon as I had sat down, as well as the holy grail of an empty row beside me, (as expected when flying on a Wednesday afternoon). Hopefully the fact that there were only thirty or so people on board would help make up some of the growing delay en route.  

The two hour flight was pleasant enough, and I treated myself to one of the green curry’s, (which is probably about as good an onboard meal as I’ve had on a budget carrier). The only concern was the delay of around half an hour. Knowing what a small airport FNI was, I was aware that there was only one dedicated bus service that met each of the dozen or so flights that arrived each week; would it wait if the flight was delayed? Of course it did, but there was no way of knowing that en route. As it turned out, the flight arrived just before the bus’ scheduled departure time, and thanks to the size of the terminal building I was deplaned, through the tiny border post and out of the terminal five minutes before it was due to leave.

189 Nîmes-Edinburgh (Ryanair); another late afternoon departure, which ended up being an early evening one. As the scheduled bus pulled into FNI, some of the passengers noted a Ryanair aircraft landing, which set off a mild panicked scramble to get off the bus, through security and onto the aircraft. For those of us using Flight Radar, this aircraft was obviously the scheduled arrival from Charleroi, not Edinburgh. In fact, our aircraft was currently over Livingston, having just taken off in the last few minutes. With a flight time of just over two hours, there was clearly going to be quite a delay. Assuming that the options for food, drink and entertainment after security at such a small airport would be very limited, as well as the fact that security itself was hardly going to be a lengthy trial with only one flight leaving, I decided to linger landside for a while. The day was warm and sunny, and the tiny terminal building did at least have one small shop, where I purchased a glass of beer and sat out in the fresh air, waiting until the aircraft was at least in French airspace before even thinking about moving. When I finally did decide to go through security, the process of the searches and crossing the border took less than a minute combined. The vast majority of my fellow pax had already done so and I was probably the last to pass through. 

As predicted, the facilities once airside were extremely basic. Two large waiting rooms with hard wooden benches, a few vending machines and a toilet. And of course a screaming child. There also seemed to be a distinct lack of information being communicated, as those pax without Flight Radar sat anxiously watching the departure time come and go on the screens at the desk, with no aircraft in sight. Finally an announcement was made that the flight was delayed, and would leave approximately an hour behind schedule. Looking at where the aircraft currently was on the map I thought that was optimistic, and so it turned out, with it finally arriving over an hour late.

Still, once we were boarded it was apparent that this would be another quiet flight. And with the recent decline in air travel since Covid, flying regularly on these half-empty aircraft has allowed me to develop a new pet hate: people who ignore weight and balance warnings and wander around the aircraft at will. So I was understandably annoyed when a middle-aged woman abruptly plonked herself at the end of my empty row just before take-off, especially given her apparent weight. Completely ignorant to the safety of all onboard and interested only in her own comfort, I treated her to my most disdainful look of disgust. This successfully frightened her into sitting somewhere else after takeoff, although we could well have been dead by then, (though I like to think my corpse would still have been casting hers a filthy look).

The flight was routine and pleasant enough though, and we even managed to make up a little time en route. And despite being a Monday evening, EDI was fairly quiet on arrival, so much so that there was no queue to speak of at the border. I did have a slightly anxious moment when passing through the e-gates, as this was the first time I had crossed the border since working for the UK Border Force at LHR. What if I got rejected, how embarrassing would it be to have to go and get my passport manually scanned by one of my colleagues. All was well though.

— London 2022

London Gatwick 2022 (Easyjet); well this was awkward. For the last year or so I’d been carefully planning all my travel, very much aware that flight number 200 was on the horizon and keen to ensure that it fell on a suitably grand occasion when it happened. And by the time my flights had reached the 180’s during the summer and I had multiple trips booked for the months ahead, I was confident that I had engineered just that. But then my employer decided to fly me to work for a few weeks, throwing the schedule into chaos and ruining all my careful planning. And as exotic as it sounds to be getting flown to work at someone else’s expense, a couple of returns from Edinburgh to Gatwick with Easyjet was hardly what most people would associate with the jetset lifestyle. But should I even count these flights at all? After all, they weren’t really what I would describe as travel. After much time spent considering the pros and cons of whether or not to include them in the tally, I decided on a compromise; they would get a mention, but would not be part of the total. Since I hadn’t paid for them, I didn’t feel they weren’t really my flights anyway. 

But a flight’s a flight, so here’s a brief overview. The first flight down was straightforward enough, although I had forgotten what a bizarre layout Gatwick had from my one previous visit nine years ago. The return was a little more fraught, with the National Express service between Heathrow, (where I was actually working), and Gatwick being over an hour late. But I managed to get there just on time, and fortunately security was very quiet. There was also quite an amusing altercation between a mother and, well, almost everyone, as she screamed hysterically that she should be allowed to board first because she had a pram. God help whoever got to sit next to her, even if it was for just over an hour. The second flight down was a little less routine, as just before arrival we began circling over the south coast for an uncomfortably long time, before finally starting our descent. I spent most of the delay going through all the catastrophic reasons why an aircraft wouldn’t just simply land and wishing I didn’t know enough about flying to know these things. No explanation was forthcoming from the flight deck sadly, but all was well on arrival and at least I could say I’d seen Brighton a couple of times. For the subsequent return, the coach service was again delayed slightly, and a schoolboy error in reading the boarding passes led us to believe we had rather more time for a pint in departures than we thought. Wouldn’t have happened if I’d actually booked the bloody flight. And given what the pint cost, it would have been nice to have enjoyed it at a rate of more than a pound a minute. But the aircraft was pleasantly quiet on boarding, and the blueberry muffin I had gotten at Pure was very tasty, making up for the slightly disappointing chicken curry I had bought it with.

186-187 Estonia 2022

186 Edinburgh-Tallinn (Ryanair): The staffing problems at most UK airports were no secret recently, especially since I left the aviation industry, (although I also heard that it was something to do with some pandemic). Regardless, with thousands of presumably republican holidaymakers taking advantage of the extra bank holiday for the Queen’s jubilee to flee the country for a few days, the news was full of horror stories of UK airports at breaking point. Biblical queues were seemingly everywhere with cancelled flights in the hundreds. Mindful of all this, I took the advice from both Ryanair and EDI to arrive three hours before departure. Unfortunately this was after Ryanair had rescheduled my flight to an hour earlier, meaning I was on the first flight out of town at 5.45am. 

Nevertheless, I made sure I was at the airport around 3am, ensuring I was near the front of the queue for security. Unfortunately security wasn’t actually open until just before four, much to the frustration of the steadily-growing queue. Every ten minutes or so a young woman employed by the airport would come along and exhort us to move up a bit closer to the closed steel shutters. From what I could see the queue was stretching back to the escalators, maybe even further, and asking people who’d been standing a bit too close together doing nothing for thirty minutes to get a bit closer to each other wasn’t improving anyone’s temper. 

Still, once security opened it was pretty quick and painless to get through, as it usually is at EDI (the one redeeming feature there at the moment). And just like last week, I was too early to be forced through the duty-free store, in fact I was too early for anything. After ten or fifteen minutes wandering aimlessly airside I found myself in the Hudson St Grill for the first time, drinking a Tennents and watching patron after patron being patiently told there was no hot food until five. Clearly these people wished to avoid the huge queue waiting outside Wetherspoons for them to open, only to find they’d given up their sport in the massive line and weren’t getting their breakfast after all. Ah well.

Having conquered my fear of flying (well, flying with Ryanair), six months earlier, this flight to Tallinn was now becoming a commute. Maybe that’s why I spent most of this flight napping, or perhaps it was the lingering effect of the zopiclone I took the evening before to help ensure a good sleep, or maybe the pint, or maybe a bit of everything. But it was the first time flying into Tallinn during the summer months, meaning that once I woke I was able to enjoy for the first time the fine views over Northern Estonia and the city itself on approach.

187 Tallinn-Edinburgh (Ryanair): The last time I flew back from Tallinn I was enraged at being hoodwinked into going through the gate almost an hour before boarding when there was still shopping and eating to be done. Well I wasn’t falling for that one again this morning. I did follow the airline’s guidance about being through security at half-ten, but I soon found that a few things had changed since November. Firstly, KFC had been replaced by some Mexican place; well, that was fine cos the local menu didn’t have gravy anyway. And the call for the gate didn’t come quite as ridiculously early as last time, leaving me free to shop and wine and dine. As it turned out, I decided not to bother anyway, contenting myself with just sitting and watching the first two quarters of the Freo-Lions game, which I continued watching up until the last possible moment on the takeoff roll. 

Two and a half hours later and having just discovered Freo had delivered a famous win, I was understandably keen to deplane and be on my way home to watch the replay (even though one of the crew had moved my cabin bag about three lockers further forward). But as we disembarked it appeared there was a problem; passengers were climbing down the airstairs and then simply standing on the tarmac. Why weren’t they proceeding inside? After joining them on the apron I belatedly realised what was going on; nobody could go inside because there was no room, the queue for the UK Border was reaching all the way back out onto the tarmac outside. All those thousands of holidaymakers fleeing the country for the jubilee were now all returning at the same time. I had been so worried about the potential issues flying out, I’d forgotten there would likely be more issues on my return. And it’s not like I could get my plane to arrive early to beat the queues, so I was stuck with it. 

Well at least it was sunny outside, if a little noisy. Within ten or fifteen minutes we made it into the building, and it wasn’t much further to the entry hall from our arrival gate. Nevertheless, it still took almost forty-five minutes all told to get off the aircraft and through the border. Most of that time was spent being annoyed by a large rabble of Estonian teenagers on a school trip, at least three of whom kept trying to edge in front of me in the queue and putting themselves in severe danger of a slap in the process. Happily there was no need for any violence, and my aging maroon passport even worked at the e-gates this time.