the ins and outs of low-cost holiday airlines

Beth and I decided last week that we needed a mini break. I had 1.5 in lieu days to take (basically free vacation due to the amount of overtime I've worked), and I found myself hunting around lastminute.com with an absurd but persistent urge to book a nice beach trip. Portugal? No, headed there in March. Spain? No, been there. Malta? Hmmm! Sadly I wasn't even sure what or where that was. I just knew I wanted to go there.

Long story short, we booked a crazy cheap three nights in a five-star spa resort and an equally crazy cheap flight on Ryanair out of Luton. The days leading up to the trip were stupidly busy at work and I didn't get home before 10 pm most nights, which meant I was really, really disorganized in getting myself packed and to the airport.

Nevertheless we made it to Luton after an hour train ride from Farringdon, breezed through security, and stood in the endless cattle call line for the flight. About 30 minutes before we were scheduled to depart, the ticket agent came around checking everyone's passports and boarding passes. She looked at Beth's first, then mine, then shook her head and said "you can't get on this flight. you don't have the right visa clearance."

Huh?

Sure enough, at the top of the ticket (which had enough text on it to be considered a novella), there were four lines about non-EU passport holders needing to get their visas checked before they could board the flight. Except you don't need a visa to go to Malta, only a passport.

We did have 30 minutes to spare but the woman insisted we would never make it through customs (why would you have to go through customs if you didn't leave the airport?), back through security, and out to the gate. Our only option was to wait until our flight left, at which point we would be escorted out of the airport to figure out how to get another flight. Keep in mind that this isn't any kind of Maltese regulation or even an air transportation regulation. Just a little something nice Ryanair does to try and squeeze a bit of extra money out of people.

That said, being escorted by security is kind of amusing.

She didn't have weapons (as far as I could tell) but she did make a great fanfare about lifting up all the security line ropes as we cut through customs. Ha.

The next Ryanair flight wasn't until the following afternoon and would cost a hefty surcharge to rebook. However, the easyJet desk was just two doors down and their flight to Malta left at 7:15 the next morning. Boom. We still had to pay extra but at least we would have almost a full day Saturday on the island.

The only catch was that the flight was out of Gatwick. And we were in Luton. These airports are on opposite sides of London (think of the distance between DAY and CVG). Luckily, we were able to catch the train door to door and I was able to catch a catnap en route. Since Gatwick is so far from where Beth and I live, our flight was so early, and we would need to be at Gatwick at 5 am (gross), we decided to stay at a hotel near the airport. A Hilton is attached to the south terminal, but it was full, so the concierge booked us a romantic night for two at the quaint Cambridge hotel about 15 minutes away. Free shuttle service.

I have to say, I enjoyed a pretty solid night's sleep (maybe because there weren't drunks staggering around in front of my window at all hours) and we got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of flying a low-cost holiday airline, our morning looked a lot like this:

- 1 hour wait in a line of sleepy, cranky children and their crazy parents. One dad had a shoulder bag with buttons on it that said: "I love your mum.", "I love beer." and my two personal favorites "I love tits." and "I love ass." This father of the year had two pre-adolescent boys with him. Their poor mother...

- 40 minute walk to the gate, which I swear wasn't even in the same airport.

- A giant, massive queue that spanned all directions and funneled into one, tiny hallway where people pushed and shoved to try and get on the plane first.

- A relatively new airplane with seats that didn't recline (luxury!), and that charged for everything from bottled water to peanuts.

But. At least we got there, which we finally did three hours later. It was 11 am when we arrived in Malta and considering that we probably would have slept late anyway, we really didn't lose any time! Best of all, the Corinthian hotel didn't charge us for the night we missed. Awesome.