Travel Aversion - my stats for traversing Grenoble Airport


It should be mentioned that, despite the intention to do more when we retire, I do not travel well.  I have a few friends who love ‘travelling’ and they have a much larger circle who love it even more.  I do not share the enthusiasm.  My parents regularly took us on holidays and weekends away in UK and abroad when we were young, S & I do go away several times a year and I have weekends away with friends, again, uk and abroad.  I also spent around 5 years living between England, Switzerland, France, Cyprus and Germany from the age of 18.  Those 5 years may be where the problem stems from.  Suffice to say I got back to England and once I got stuff in the loft I was not moving again and I’m not that keen when a suitcase comes out.


Against that backdrop, there was a little anxiety (I use the word very loosely here - this is not a medical condition) about not having a tour company responsible for me and having to get Ben’s Buses from resort to the airport at some unearthly time in the morning.  Frankly, even with my ‘even if it doesn’t go wrong it will be a pain’ attitude towards travel, Ben’s Buses could not be faulted on the trip into resort from Grenoble airport so…………..


……….once again they could not be faulted.  Which is more than can be said for the guy who arrived at the bus stop, left his case with a friend and did not reappear until 10 minutes after the scheduled departure time.


It is a while since we have flown out of Grenoble but memories of the chaos instantly came flooding back the moment I stepped through the doors.  Obviously, we were already checked in but skiing does tend to involve some kit so it’s not like you can saunter through security with hand baggage (well we can’t - 2 cases, one double boot bag, 2 ski bags and 2 back packs (by way of cabin bags).  


The timings for traversing an airport no larger than Stansted’s duty free section:


1 hour bag drop queue

5 mins ski drop

10 mins in the queue to join the security queue (boards already showing our flight was boarding!!)

1 hour 5 mins security queue and security itself

5 mins passport control


Arrive at gate at 10:43am ie 3 mins after flight was suppposed to take off.


Boarding complete 11.15am ie 35 mins after scheduled take off but we had an air traffic control restriction of 40 mins.  We were not alone, this was everyone, Jet2, RyanAir, WizzAir, BA, EasyJet, the lot.  I should mention that despite the chaotic scenes all our bags miraculously turned up at the other end.


I am now being sent photos of a friend’s trip to Agadir.  Looks hopeless for skiing though the avalanche risk should be lower!




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