The following morning I re-checked my new flights. Amusingly, Tenerife South Airport’s website was still listing Globespan‘s two flights as on time. I’d spoken to a couple from Aberdeen who should have been on the other flight to me and they’d coughed up £1000 to get home. Ow.

Another person told me a friend of hers had taken up RyanAir‘s generous “repatriation” offer at £60 all in. Except for the additional fees. After which her flight was then £200. Plus it landed at Prestwick Airport (not Glasgow International) shortly before midnight so she had a costly taxi far to add to that.

Just to make that point there – RyanAir ripping off people stuck in a horrible situation. Absolutely no surprise whatsoever.

We were ushered out of our room so the cleaners could assault it shortly after 10am and jumped into a taxi to the airport. We were very early, so the queues were short although none of the check-in desks were open.

The fastest queue to grow, though, was EasyJet‘s. I think they were the only airline with flights covering routes offered by Globespan and a lot of people had not found out that they didn’t have a valid ticket any more until they arrived to see their flight cancelled.

I had a quick nosey at the board to see that Christina’s flight was on time and mine was… delayed. Oh great. I had 2 hours and 10 minutes’ layover at Belfast International. That gave me around an hour and a bit to get my luggage and check in for the next flight. I was now delayed by an unknown length of time.

Fortunately, it eventually became clear that my delay would be no more than an hour. After no fewer than three gate changes, we finally boarded (Christina and her mum were already on board their flight by this time) and taxi’d for take-off.

Credit to Jet2.com. The flight was delayed due to bad conditions in the UK which caused problems with the plane being able to leave there to get to us. And it was a comfy enough plane for budget. Nice staff, too. And a decent in-flight magazine.

I snoozed and read all the way to Belfast where the couple next to me ushered me off the plane ahead of them as they knew I might be tight for time with my transfer. Fortunately, Belfast is a small airport and my luggage appeared fairly rapidly.

I ran down the corridor, got directions to check-in, ran down another corridor, turned left, spied the EasyJet check-in and gasped my way to it.

“Where are you going tonight, sir?”

“Glasgow.”

“You are aware of the delay to your flight, yes?”

AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

At that point it was an hour. Of course, it wouldn’t make a difference to checking in as they always close 40 minutes before the original, scheduled time. But that’s  no consolation. Again, weather was being blamed. And it could have been worse – I’d seen flights from Luton, Stansted and Gatwick cancelled.

I moped my way into the departure lounge and eventually settled down for a panini when my flight was delayed by an extra half hour.

And then bumped up by 15 minutes with a “boarding now” announcement just as I got my food. Typical.

I finally arrived in Glasgow at a little before 11pm. Christina and her mum had waited patiently (in a pub – surprise) for my arrival as I was driving them home. My uncle picked us all up and ferried us to their house where we swapped cars and I began the drive up towards Perth.

We didn’t die. I got everyone home safe. And it made for an interesting though tiring end to the week.

Huge thanks to Christina and Karen for inviting me out there. I really needed the break after my recent placement and other things that were messing with my head. And thanks to my dad for sorting the flights out at the UK end. More thanks to Stuart, my uncle for dropping me off at 5am and picking me up a few days later at 11pm.

Here’s hoping the excitement on my next holiday is all pre-planned.