Budget airlines and cheap European travel

I write this half asleep on a midnight budget flight from London-Luton to Prague, apparently over Frankfurt Germany though that’s difficult to confirm with the thick cloud cover over the whole of Europe right now. Budget airlines are a brand new experience for us - this is the first time we have traveled anywhere far enough from London to require a plane.

At 80GBP return from London to Prague, the price is certainly right and makes travel to anywhere inside of Europe cheaper than I think it will ever be for us. One of the downsides to the low prices is that the budget airlines tend to fly out of budget airports that are about as convenient as an 8am wedgie in a Tokyo subway. Luton airport, where we flew out of today, is nothing more than a glorified hangar two hours by bus from Oxford somewhere on the outskirts of London. It is cheap and cheerful, if there ever was such a thing, and is super easy to get in and out of, once you’re there. The security is surprisingly light for an international airport and with the recent foiled bomb plots I feel as though I should be worried. Like all post 9/11 American men though, I know that any flight with me on it is the safest plane in the sky. Luton has all of the usual things you would want in an international airport, several restaurants, a dozen bookstores, a few bars, and a duty free that carries everything from chocolate to Johnnie Walker blue label.

Budget airports also operate a bit differently. Instead of simply parking by the gate, the planes sit out in the middle of the tarmac and wait for you to come to them. We waited in a crowded staircase and then ran outside to get to our plane … and if you’ve ever been to this latitude in the fall, you know how chilly that can be. Combine that with open-seating and you end up with the loss of all human decency when getting on and off the aircraft. I have heard it referred to as a rugby scrum and I think that is the best description.

We are flying Wizz Air (I know what you’re thinking, I nearly didn’t buy the ticket either) which is a Hungarian company. The crew seems competent and the plane is a reasonably new AirBus A320 (newly painted anyway) complete with wings and a pilot. The seats are straight out of a 1975 Pontiac Lemans and therefore are unsurprisingly quite comfortable. They don’t recline much but that is actually a blessing due to the wonderful length of Julianne’s legs. I keep getting a wiff of eau de old sofa, but it is oddly comforting, like going to grandma’s house. There are absolutely no perks on this flight, but seeing as though it’s only an hour and a half I think I will survive. They just came by with the service cart which was of course not free but after thinking about it for a while, should it be? I paid absolutely nothing for the ticket and my Seattle commute to work took longer on a good day. Free water though would be considerate, I can’t bring it on to the plane and last I checked it was the reason life exists on this planet which makes it a bit of a necessity.

Finally, the gotchas. As you can imagine, budget airlines try and knock you for everything with zero remorse. The first one is that for anything larger than a carry-on you get charged 25GBP per bag so you need to pack light, which is no problem for us since we have our handy travel backpacks. (Russian women on the other hand seem to have a big problem with that.) Secondly, web check-in is required or they charge you 8GBP per boarding pass to print which we did not find out until on our way back. In a country like England, finding internet or checking in at your hotel is no problem, but when you are in Prague and internet and printers are as rare as overt communists, this becomes a problem. You have to stand in line for 45 minutes to get a sheet of paper to run over to someone on the other side of the airport to charge you and print another stupid little piece of paper that then needs to be walked back over to the first counter…you get the point.

I always hear Americans proclaim the brilliance of cheap European budget flights, and yes, the price is right, even for Bob Barker but they are about the most uncivilized experience you can have in a lifetime of travel. An experience it is though and a frequent one it will be for us.