Californiacation! When your life’s in a mess – National Express coach 737 High Wycombe-Luton Airport, London’s tinniest airport – Luton
Kevin’s Note: It seems I’m not the only person in the world who travels at silly o’clock in the morning to an airport…
Index:
- Californiacation – What, where, why, when, who, how
- When your life’s in a mess – National Express coach 737 High Wycombe-Luton Airport/London’s tinniest airport – Luton
- New Cuddly Ryanair – Flight FR7404 London Luton-Copenhagen
- Hanging with the Little Mermaid – Copenhagen
- There’s a 5AM? – Copenhagen Airport
- To Fly, To Serve Croissants – Flight BA811 Copenhagen-London Heathrow
- When one Breakfast isn’t enough – Chiswick
- Running the Duty Free Gauntlet – Heathrow Terminal 3
- The American way! – Flight AA135 LHR-LAX
- I hopped off the plane at LAX… – Los Angeles Part 1
- Hollywoodland – Sights of LA – Los Angeles Part 2
- I hopped on the plane at LAX – Los Angeles Airport
- The American way to London – Flight AA136 LAX-LHR
- Californiacated – Heathrow and review
I find that all of the best journeys start with alarm clocks going off at 4am. This is exactly how this one began and, having checked for the fifty seventh time that I had my passport, wallet, phone and keys, I headed out of the door.
After a rather chilly 15 minute walk I arrived at High Wycombe’s glorious bus station, where I and about 5 other brave souls prepared to make the journey to Luton Airport on the 5:15am National Express coach.
High Wycombe Bus Station on a cold and frosty morning.
The coach arrived on time and we all piled on. Thankfully, it was relatively quiet and I was able to grab a row to myself (and an exit row at that!).
Our Chariot Arrives
After an hour of cruising around various outer-London motorways we arrived at Luton, London’s tin shed of an airport.
The airport authorities seem to have finally realised quite how grim their terminal is and it is now covered in signs promising that it will, eventually, be slightly less awful. Sadly, this is not yet the case and the facility feels far too small for the number of passengers it is currently dealing with.
If it feels super busy on a Friday in the middle of January, I’d hate to see it on a Friday in August.
Security was packed but relatively efficient. I managed to avoid triggering any alarms and was through in about 15 minutes.
Take away the orange tensa-barriers and it could be Fleet Service Station
I quickly gave up on the central waiting/shopping area and followed a sign promising additional seating at gate 1. Foolishly, I presumed that Gate 1 would be near the central area.
It’s not.
It is a good 10 minutes away from it. However, it does offer surprisingly comfy leather chairs to wait in. The rest of the area has all the charm of your local doctor’s waiting room, but with fewer glossy magazines from the late 1990s.
Thankfully it transpired that my flight was departing from Gate 2, so I meandered over to find that the queue was already 70 people long (Ryanair’s allocated seating policy clearly hasn’t yet seen off their traditional queue of doom).
Having nothing better to do, I joined it. Around 2 minutes later, I looked down to find that a lady was gate tagging my bag. She took the interesting approach of doing this first, then telling me that I’d not be taking it onboard. Thankfully, this time I didn’t care, as the friends I was meeting in Copenhagen had bags to pick up. On other occasions, I would’ve been less than pleased.
After about 30 minutes in the queue (and around 10 minutes before departure) the gate agent came on the tannoy to announce that the crew weren’t at the aircraft yet and boarding would be delayed.
This produced an almost comical sight from the assembled crowd and, inexplicably, seemed to drive even more people into the queue.
Departure time came and went and we were eventually shepherded onto buses around 8:40 (10 minutes after the stated departure time) for a magical mystery tour of the Luton Airport tarmac.
By this point, I was really beginning to feel the impact of only having 2 hours sleep, and the prospect of 3 hours onboard a Ryanair plane to follow wasn’t filling me with joy…
Next: New Cuddly Ryanair – Flight FR7404 London Luton-Copenhagen
Adam is a guest writer at Economy Class and Beyond, with a taste for a good deal and interesting flying. You can follow him on Twitter at @adamcobb
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