Never again!!

What am I saying never again to? Simple. Flying out of London Luton airport, that’s what!

The trip to the airport wasn’t too bad – it was the mess that followed. The ground staff didn’t seem interested, and to be honest, I could see why there have been so many cases of the tabloid papers having reports taking photographs of themselves with various bits of illegal items onboard the aircraft – such as replica hand guns and knives…

What makes me say this? The mere fact that both Mum and I were carrying in our hand luggage what are classed as prohibited items – Mum had a pair of nail clippers, and I had a pair of tweezers.

Then, came the farce that was the gate. Gate? A cattle pen would have more use. The gates were so close together that the various flights seemed to merge into one big lump, and when people thought that you were trying to queue jump, glared, grumbled and generally made things damned difficult to get to the gate so that you could board the flight!

Once you got through the crush, you then had to walk down several flights of stairs, and get herded onto a bus. I swear that if you treated livestock like that, then the RSPCA would be bringing a prosecution against you for animal cruelty!

Then it was the steps upto the aircraft. I could manage, as I’m reasonably nimble on my feet, but poor Mum really struggled, as the steps were quite large, and no-one even thought to ask if she needed any help!

There was one shining spot on the trip outbound – the guy on the check-in desk blocked the row that Mum and I were sitting in, so that Mum could have the aisle seat, and me the window seat... That way, Mum was able to stretch her leg out a bit more and I didn’t have to worry about anyone knocking my arm…

The approach to the runway at Gibraltar is quite an experience – and rather disconcerting when you realise that the runway sticks out into the bay of Gibraltar, and has water on three sides of it! (As you’ll see from later photographs in the various posts!)

The landing though, was one of the worse that I’ve had… I swear that the pilot bounced the aircraft (a B757-200) about four times, before we came to a halt at the airport…

The return trip, I’ll deal with in a later post, as I want to keep this in chronological order…

Suppose I should log off and bog off – I’ve still got to unpack, and get the various bits sorted out…

Back later, if I get the peace and quiet from the moggies...

Karen.

I walk where others fear to tread