Travelling with low cost airlines ✈️

Sometimes I was flying with LOT Polish Airlines, with mostly business people on board, but most times I used Ryanair and especially WizzAir. Passengers are just different on these low cost airline flights.

Recently I wrote about queueing, highlighting the waiting for on- and offboarding airplanes. Pissing off pursers unbuckling and standing up right after landing.

Besides this there were more things I was not used to. The Polish are just different travellers than the Dutch.

Clapping
I travelled with German charters before so I was not surprised when a huge round of applause was given when the pilot put his big bird on the ground safely. So they also do in Poland, but I have to say that it is getting less and less. During my first flights to Poland years ago it was still pretty standard, nowadays it's mostly just a few doing it for fun. In Holland we always say: "If the mailman delivers post to you then you also aren't clapping your hands."

Piwo
Alcohol is a part of Polish culture, the maths do not lie. Dutch people, mostly young guys going on holiday or city trip, would order a couple of beers ("piwo") onboard. In general this onboard service of food and drinks is not being used by many Dutch people on short distance flights.

I have traveled in mornings, afternoons and evenings, but cannot remember a flight where none of the Poles around me ordered a few beers. Regardless of the time. Especially the men travelling alone would order a couple of half litre cans in the morning. I love the smell of warm beer in the morning.

The Dutch
The Dutch also have their rituals onboard of low cost airline flights. There always is that guy, we call him "the funniest of the family". Always. Imagine how it would be on a charter flight.

First they do their "joking" with the nearest stewardess. If she is not reacting totally amused then she is "grumpy" and that guy would be an absolute childish dickhead during the safety instructions. Only his dickhead friends would laugh.

Then the people who have a conversation with the person they are travelling with, but at such a high volume that at least 5 rows have to listen to it. Gotta love 'em, people who like to hear themself talk...

Poles are more reserved and introvert people. The Dutch would not hesitate to start a conversation with a stranger, it happens quite a lot actually. Between people travelling alone it can be nice.

Frequent flyers
On these flights you start to recognize faces when flying that much, all having different reasons flying that route regularly.

Pilot Grzegorz, his landings are superb.

One of our friends is also Dutch and living in Warsaw. One year he made around a 100 flights between Brussels and Warsaw. He is a very easy going guy and at a certain stage it was normal that the first row almost always was filled with the same people.

After a hard week at work the guys were there just relaxing with blocks of Dutch cheese, pieces of sausage etc being shared amongst each other. Spending the Friday evening together :-)

Just super.