EGPF Forum

Yes that title is correct. On Wednesday and Thursday I travelled to Prague using a number of different vouchers and cheap flights.

It started with ScotRail into Glasgow, nothing particularly exciting about it, but the ticket inspector thought I was mad when I told them my route.

Next was Flixbus from Buchanan Bus station to Manchester at 2240. The bus was on time and was clean, but not very comfortable and I think the driver used the heating to try and make people sleep. I paid £1.35

A walk through Manchester to Piccadilly station at 3am was next, I wouldn't recommend.

The 0341 TPE service out to Manchester airport was next, and it was good to hear the conductor making the announcements in 3 languages.

Manchester T1 was let down massively by the employees, who seemed more interested in their own conversations than their passengers.

Jet2 was the airline of choice flying to Rome FCO at 0715 on a 737-800. The flight was full and the cabin crew were good, but I do think the Jet2 staff in Glasgow are overall much friendlier than the MAN staff (I can't comment on other bases). I can't complain as I only paid £9.

FCO was a breeze, e-gates for UK travellers and the new x-ray scanners at security make it a dream to use. Had to help a woman in Rome who tripped and fell, bashing her head off a seat in the process (medics were on scene within minutes).

WIZZ Air Malta were the airline of choice to Prague - won't say much as I will have a review on my site next week, all i will say is MXP-AUH must be fun.

Landed in Prague having gone "round the houses" just after 9pm. T2 in PRG is the Schengen terminal and is pretty basic but easy to use.

Overall it was an experience to say the least, but 36 hours with no sleep is enough to make anybody go mental.

Would I do it again? Absolutely not! Was it better than flying direct? In a way yes, but significantly more stressful.

Are you mad!!

Sounds like a trip and a half, but I'm sure we applaud you for doing it

The ScotRail TE was absolutely correct

Flew back to GLA yesterday with Jet2 on LS154.

Prague Airport T1 was surprisingly quiet, possibly helped by flights to Bulgaria and Romania moving from T1 to T2 at the start of the summer season as those two countries became partial members of the Schengen Area.

PRG T1 is unusual in the fact that security is at the boarding gate rather than a centralised checkpoint, this will change when the terminal is modernised in the next 10 years. Gates A6-A9 share a security search and this was busy but moved quick as the airport kept the two LS departures together, gate A6 for GLA and gate A7 for LBA.

Immediately when boarding the crew greeted everybody and was happily making small talk while waiting to move down the aircraft. I found my randomly allocated seat, 8D on this occasion and settled in. I would say the flight was roughly 90% full based on the seat map when I checked in.

We departed on time and the onboard service commenced shortly after take-off, followed by a duty free service and a very quick second service.

Landed into GLA 24 minutes early and pulled onto stand 27 a couple of minutes later with a KLM about to pushback from 28, FI on 29 and EK on 30, although it appeared that stands 25 and 26 were closed and blocked off for some reason.

Quickly off the aircraft and into a long border queue, as it turns out the e-gates were down across the country, meaning that the 5 at GLA were closed, and everybody directed through a manned desk. Despite the queue stretching most of the length of the corridor I was through in roughly 26 minutes, not bad considering the target time for EU arrivals is 20 minutes.

No bags to pick up and no customs check meant I could head straight out the airport for the 757 to Paisley.

I did notice that Ryanair and WIZZ have moved check-in to T2, as have Corendon according to the displays in the airport, one to note for anybody flying with them.

Overall, another good experience with Jet2. GLA could have had a few more announcements about the queue, although it is possible later flights were told about the queues on the aircraft.