A few essential lessons learnt the hard way about getting on a short-distance European flight from London. Placed here for the benefit of those who might suffer from the same level of brain-cell degeneration and lack of common sense as yours truly.
- Obvious Point #1 Booking the last flight of the day, out of a dead-end airport is not a good idea.
- Obvious Point #2 Putting any trust in the airline claim that said airport is “within 30 minute reach of central London” is even less of a good idea.
- Obvious Point #3 Not factoring in a heavy Murphy coefficient when calculating the estimated time required by the journey to the airport, is a downright asinine idea.
Anyway, you get the picture…
This is the first time I miss a plane. ever. Well, except for last year, when I misread the day on my ticket and missed my plane by a full 24 hours.
This one was the first I could actually hear taking off from my arriving shuttle bus…
Yup, I more or less experienced this when I popped over to the Baltics at the beginning of this year… and that was taking into account a heavy Murphy coefficient. I have since come to the conclusion that aircraft and airports somehow warp space-time in creating this strange effect.
Well, I probably shouldn’t say that, seeing how I beautifully managed to miss that one, but I usually make a point of not getting there too early for my flights… I mean, like an hour before (instead of the usually recommended 2 hours), not 5 minutes before…
Being fashionably late when it comes to flight check-ins has, I have noticed, many enjoyable side-effects… and, provided you get there before the plane takes off (ok, a little bit before), chances you’d not get on your plane are very low…
That being said, when the airport is Lutton fuckin Airport and you arrive 10 minutes *after*, these considerations matter very little…