Back On The Road Again

Back on the road again.  It's fairly obvious that post-Covid travel is changed a lot.  The first thing you notice is the crowds.  Having just spent a month visiting the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Europe which included Britain and Croatia I was amazed by the number of people traveling.  Every flight was full and there were masses of people at every Gate, restaurant, and security line.  Because of the crowds, it is obvious that you have to get to the airport at least an hour or two earlier than in the past.  Compounding the increase in crowds is the decrease in staff.  Everyone is short-staffed. They are trying to improve but the way they're improving is by hiring completely inexperienced young untrained staff and training them on the job in the middle of the battle and it only adds to the problem and confusion and is not really helping. But on the other hand, what are you going to do?  At least in Europe compounding the crowd issue is the increased utilization of discount Airlines such as EasyJet.  EasyJet provides inexpensive no-frills tickets for traveling and it seems that everyone was taking advantage of cheap tickets.  One of the new requirements that created issues for us was everyone wants you to check-in online 24 hours in advance and if you haven't checked in online then it slows down your process of getting through the lines. This applied to restaurants, especially hotels, and Airlines.  Of Interest, I read an article, and I don't know if it's true, but in Belgium, if you show up at the airport without checking in online they fine you €65.  One hotel canceled our reservation on the day of arrival because we did not check-in online. Another area that shows change is the use of QR code scans in most places.  Airport lounges and restaurants asked you to use a QR Scanner to pull up information, menus, etc and this was across the industry and pretty much everywhere.  Airport lounges have become much more critical to improving your comfort on a trip.  I recommend you either get a credit card that allows for Lounge access or if necessary purchase Lounge access.  Even then the lounges that we visited had overcrowding with no staff and a lack of amenities in some cases. One recommendation I can make at this point is to avoid British Air and especially Gatwick Airport.  I always thought British Airways was a premium airline with some of the best business class amenities. Having flown them 4 times this month the price was twice the price and as far as I'm concerned the amenities were half the competitors.  Gatwick Airport is one of the worst airports I've experienced in terms of transfers and changing plans and making flights.  Both times we went through Gatwick it took over 2 hours just to check in and go through security and almost missed connecting flights.  British friends that we spoke with confirmed that instead most Brits try to avoid Gatwick and fly out of Heathrow.  The main reason Gatwick is so busy is that it seems to be the primary airport in Europe for EasyJet.  Buyer beware!

News Flash just announced Gatwick Airport has requested all airlines to reduce the number of arrivals as they have no staff to meet the need, on the news wire this morning!!  Go figure!!