The travel jinx continues

It seems that, recently, every time we wish to travel outside of Portugal there is some form of problem.

This time it was the airline, notorious for low cost and low service.

We had to travel to UK for a family funeral, the available time was limited so the journey was planned to allow us to get from place to place with a little discrepancy and still make the trip as brief as possible.

This time there was no problem with the train and we arrived in Lisbon as arranged with plenty of time to get to the airport. We had some lunch and went via the metro to the airport, just three stops from the railway station at Oriente.

Being a penny-pinching company, Ryanair will fly from the lowest cost terminal at any airport, so we needed the shuttle bus to get to Lisbon Terminal 2, again there were no problems.

Once at the terminal, we checked the departure schedule and our flight was showing as 'on-time' and we had a couple of hours to wait.

Navigating the security checks was no bother, even though the entire process was extremely slow due to the tray delivery system being less than optimal. But, again, it was not a major issue.

Time to sit down and relax.

When the expected 'gate time' arrived the board changed and gave a new departure time of 21:15, precisely 2 hours and 55 minutes late - coincidentally just inside the 3 hour 'fault' window.

This was disappointing news, even at that departure time we would not be able to catch any train from Manchester to Halifax and get to the hotel.

Already 1½ hours late, it was evident that the 'plane we were waiting for had been held up, I checked the Flightradar24 app. Working on a hunch, I located the aircraft, still over England approaching the Cornwall coast - it was the associated Ryanair Manchester to Lisbon service. There was no way that it would be in Lisbon by 21:15, never mind departing with us on board.

We needed to make plans.

Firstly, arrange an emergency hotel in Manchester and then travel to Halifax the next morning, the day of the funeral. Then inform the hotel in Halifax that we would be checking in late - 12 hours late. But, the trip was still possible.

Time went by and the departure board updated a few times until it showed a departure time of 22:45.

The airport terminal is extremely boring with uncomfortable seats, and expensive not very palatable food. We waited and waited.

Finally, the gate was opened for boarding.

We had our boarding passes with seat allocation. At the desk, Janet's ticket was rejected !! Which was somewhat of a surprise. My ticket was accepted but Janet would not be allowed onto the flight. There were some others who had a similar rejection by the computer - the staff appeared to have little idea what the problem was.

After waiting for all of the other passengers to board, and then with the supervisor verifying the no-show passengers, Janet and one other passenger were allocated new seats - so our emergency was solved, at least we were going to Manchester.

Once on board the 'plane it became obvious what the issue was, there was no row 34 !! My seat was row 33 and Janet's was on the non-existent row. The captain announced over the tannoy that they had 'stolen' a replacement aircraft from Belgium as the one already in Manchester was not airworthy, further evidence that the airline has little or no contingency. This explained the different seating arrangements and why the departure was now 4½ hours late. Departure finally happened at 22:50 instead of 18:20.

The flight was subdued and uneventful, with no complimentary drinks or snacks of course.

Eventually arriving in Manchester Terminal 3 at around 1:40, we had to make our way across to the taxi rank to get a ride to the hotel in Piccadilly. Half an hour later and £40 lighter we got to the hotel and checked in. At least the staff at Manchester Piccadilly Hotel we very courteous and, although it took some time to do the check-in process and get to the room, then to find that the electronic key did not open the door, we finally got to bed at 02:50 - our train from Manchester Victoria station was at 08:57. We set three alarms to wake up in time.

After waking up, showering, and dressing for the train journey we checked out and headed for Victoria Station. By now I had two shoes that had their soles coming away at the heels - now I need to source some new dress shoes for the service. We picked up some snacks from the station shop and got on the train to Halifax, unbelievably we were on the last leg of the outbound journey.

Upon arriving at Halifax, the hotel is just across the road from the train station so we did the check-in process, dropped our bags in the room, and then went shopping - we had just one hour to get ready to be picked up at the hotel.

It was pretty plain sailing from then on. We returned to the hotel, changed for the funeral service, and got our lift to the crematorium.

The rest of the day was exactly as planned with the wake and returning to the hotel later that day.

One more night in Halifax and then we had the reverse journey. As the flight was due in the evening we spent the morning in Halifax and had lunch with my sister.

There were no delays with getting back to the airport and the flight was shown as on-time. We got across to Terminal 3 in plenty of time and had a snack. The gate time arrived and we joined the mob, boarding was done almost within the scheduled time and we were all ready to go. Surely there would be no problems now?

Only then did the pilot give us the news that, due to a strike by French air traffic controllers, our departure slot would be at least two hours late. He hoped that they could negotiate a sooner slot and would keep us advised. His negotiating skills must have been lacking because we took off a little more than two hours later.

During the delay, and during the first half of the flight, a large Eastern European gentleman was becoming more agitated and more drunk. He was very unhappy with the delay and kept getting up to complain to the cabin staff, he was beginning to worry some of the passengers. He did eventually get sleepy and calmed down in his seat.

So, we landed around two hours late. Knowing that we would not arrive in Lisbon in time to take the last train home we had planned a hotel stay as part of the trip. A metro ride to Marques de Pombal took us near the third hotel of our trip, and we checked in.

With no rush to wake up in the morning all the alarms were turned off - this made little difference, the noise of traffic and sirens easily passed through the poorly fitting window. In the morning, construction work started on the adjoining building which was even more noisy. Sleeping late was impossible.

We decided to get up and went to breakfast. After a feed, we packed and checked out then went to Oriente railway station to store our bags before going on a shopping spree.

Our train to Vale de Prazeres was on time at 16:23 and we arrived home almost four hours later with no delays.

It had been a long, tiring 4 days but we were now home safe and sound.