Well today's return journey to Leeds from Krakow was rather more eventful than the flight out there. I got to Krakow Airport in good time, just got through security and passport control to receive a text from my mate who works at LBA '60 mph winds here, your plane has just been put back in the blocks'. Oh well I thought, I'll explore.....that lasted about 5 minutes, honestly LBA does not deserve to so often be called a 'shed' on Twitter in comparison to other airports such as Krakow, which truly is a shed. I found two shops and hard uncomfortable seating, with not even a view of the runway. The place was busy bordering on packed, and I just happened to find a spare hard pew to park myself. No word of a lie, if a nation-less Tom Hanks had found himself stranded at Krakow, that film 'The Terminal' would have lasted about 25 minutes.
There was no official announcement made until 10am CET, which was over an hour after I had received my text. Eventually my mate texted me again to say the aircraft was on its way. With nothing else to do, I spent the next two hours eating megabytes on my O2 roaming, many of which were spent watching the progress of the incoming FR2332.
Eventually the call was made to begin to queue, this is when I noticed the masses of hand luggage, this plane was going to be full, and much of the hand luggage was definitely not Ryanair regulation sized. I guess Krakow like Prague, is another airport where the handling agents don't really care about stuff like that, I'm sure O'Dreary would be crying in his Guinness if he knew.
Something that bugged me on the flight out, and that also bugged me on the flight back was the fact that some passengers had not switched off their mobile phones, despite announcements being made in both English and Polish. I heard two text messages while airborne going (both around the same time about 10 minutes before landing), and I heard one just after take-off this time, and another over Headingley. What is wrong with these idiots?
The landing at Leeds was HEAVY and this wasn't due to cross-winds, it was a typical Ryanair slam dunk, the three heaviest landings that I have ever had (out of around 200 flights) have all been Ryanscare, twice at LBA and once at Dublin, when the pilots decided to land in a Thunder Storm that was over the airport at the time, it was the worst of the three by a long way. The Poles don't seem to be very good at staying in their seats on landing, in fact some had unbuckled immediately and began to rise while the plane was still speeding down the runway! The cabin assistant absolutely shrieked down the mic at them, and then it happened again! Unbelievable.
We parked at stand 12 and the surprise of the day was that there were three service buses to meet us, along with a small army of Servisair staff. 'Blimey' I quipped to a tall blonde lass 'I can't believe Ryanair have forked out for buses' her stoney expression and lack of response made the grouch sat next to me on the flight look positively effervescent. We were bussed to the arrivals door at stand 5, in some airports they have escalators, at LBA we have a statue, so once again the bottle neck of people with oversized hand luggage clattered and fell up the stairs together.
I was supposed to be back for a meeting at 1pm, but obviously I didn't make it, and I can understand people getting annoyed at the weather impacts at LBA, for me this was only my second major LBA related weather delay.
All in all, my Ryanair latest experience was mixed, the flight out was the very definition of efficiency, and the return journey wasn't. It wasn't Ryanair's fault that the plane was delayed, but Krakow is a rubbish airport to be stuck in. I wasn't overly impressed with the protocol of many of my fellow passengers, but this in my previous experience seems to be typical for Eastern Europe. However, to say that I only paid £38 for the return flight (all in), I can't really complain, and have attempted to tell it like it is.