Flying in these strange times

Recently my wife and I flew from London Stansted to Turkey – our first time on an aeroplane in six months. We used to take this trip regularly in the pre-coronavirus era, to go see our parents, but this time each leg of the journey had an element of surprise.

You take it for granted how easy flying was once upon a time, you knew what 23kg felt like without weighing your luggage, you knew the precise time you had to leave the house to arrive at the departure gate with 40 minutes to spare and you knew which gate the Dalaman flight tended to go from… but not anymore!

In the run up to the day of our flight there was more discussion between us in terms of what to take and what not to take, the bags were on the living room floor days in advance, items were put in and items were removed… being seasoned travellers, why were we behaving like it was our first ever flight?
Every day we kept checking the airline’s website to ensure there was no…