1091 – Gatwick

After we heard about the issues with the uk air traffic system (the cause of which rather tests my credulity especially after speaking to a former RAF Navigator whom we’ve just met) we were someŵhat nervous about what would be waiting for us upon our arrival at Gatwick.

We had even discussed the possibility of the flight being delayed by anything up to twenty four hours and were grateful that the next part of the holiday wasn’t due to start until 24 hours after that (giving us a roughly 48 hour window in Malta) so we felt well prepared for whatever confronted us at the airport. Especially as the press were presenting a picture of utter chaos.

First indications were that the railway station didn’t appear to be any busier than you might expect it to be, particularly after the weekend rail strike that had only recently ended.

The railway station is at Gatwick’s south terminal and we needed to be at the north terminal for the easyJet departure. We had arrived a good hour earlier than we needed to in readiness for any crush. We didn’t experience anything like that on the monorail transfer service which was fast, efficient, relaxed and uncrowded.

Disembarking from the monorail, we braced ourselves for the heaving crush of frustrated angry people. Only snag was, they weren’t there. Of course there were people waiting to board. We had to wait an hour before we were allowed to check our bags in and there are never enough seats for people waiting to go air-side, but that’s probably to discourage loitering than anything else. The numbers actually seemed a lot fewer than we had expected there were no long queues to check bags in, in fact there were no queues at all (in the context of an airport, half a dozen people waiting to check in bags does not constitute a queue – in my eyes at least).

As we were waiting for our check in window to open, we were watching other people. It was self checkin, looked fairly straightforward; put bag on belt, scan boarding pass, weigh. If under large green light, if over 23kg, large red light. When it came to our turn, luckily our home scales had been reasonably accurate, so two green lights.

Air side was fine, we had enough time to get something to eat and then make our way to the gate. I’m not going to anything about the flight it went ok. Even our transfer from airport to hotel was straightforward, so that was good. Too late to get anything to eat but that’s ok, weren’t really hungry.