Saturday morning, left home early, really early, 7.30 flight from Luton to Montpellier. Picked up by our lovely mates, straight to the beach, lying in the sun before 11. Fantastic. Short journeys, European trips, even with Easyjet, the only airline to fly into Montpellier now from London, but heh; it was all plain sailing. Even though we never had a boat.

Arrived back at the airport at 6 last night for a flight at 7. Easy-peasy; hand luggage, checked in, strolling through what is not the world’s busiest airport, breezed through security where there were loads of staff and no other passengers, ahhhhhh, what could possibly go wrong? What could happen to take that warm, post-holiday feelgood glow from our relaxed and calm minds and bodies?

Easyjet. That’s what can go wrong. The flights screens were showing our flight as ‘retarded’. What? We have a subnormally unintelligent plane? Is the pilot dim?? Maybe he’s just a Stoke fan, which looks the same thing. Oh, ‘retarde’ is French for ‘delayed’. Oh well, never mind, so we’ll go an hour late, still be home by 9, no problem…

Is it?

No information forthcoming other than ‘retarded’ and absolutely no-one to ask due to all staff on a general ‘hide’, not one announcement. So I went on the Easyjet website and learned that our take off time had been moved from 18.55 to 23.30. F-f-f-fuck me. Five hours. But hold on, people who’d checked in at the airport (we were fast becoming close friends, ‘the condemned’, as the normal British ban on all communication with strangers is suspended in times of crisis) had been told by staff that the delay was ‘just’ 3 hours?

They fucking lied. The Easyjet staff, not our new friends. Then an announcement came to say the delay was 4 hours as ‘our plane’ was on its way to London from Corfu. Oh, that’s ok then. NOOOOOOOO! Its not ok, it awful. The delay started at 10 in the morning in Greece (the details are just so irrelevant) and diverted landings and knock-on effects later, we’re in the south of France waiting for a plane to arrive in London from a Greek island.

Kids were crying, parents getting flustered, I’d finished 3 crosswords and was getting hungry. Never mind, accompanied by the usual total lack of announcement, Easyjet were providing vouchers for ‘food and drink’. So we wouldn’t starve. The voucher was for 4.5 Euros. And a sandwich when we finally boarded the plane was 5.50. Bottle of water 2.50. Which means the ‘voucher’ was not to provide vital sustenance for the masses but a token gesture of very patronising nature; of ‘throwing a few bob’ at the problem. Let them eat cake. Except the cafe at the airport had run out of cake and if they had any it would have been about a tenner.

Finally arrived at Luton; about 1.30 UK time. Which, for the purposes of car parks, is ‘another day older and certainly deeper in debt’. My pre-paid ticket inserted, the little screen told me I owed them £133. For the extra 5 hours? Actually that was the only ‘break’, the disembodied voice at Luton Car Parks told me not to worry and buzzed me out the gate.

The perfect ending to a wonderful little break.
They’ll be hearing from my lawyers. If I had any.

Happy tuesday

A xxxx