I used to love budget airlines. My Hubsy and I have travelled many places using the likes of Ryanair, Bmibaby, easyJety, etc. We never used to check anything in and made the most of that 10kg free cabin allowance. 

Recently we went to Alicante via Monarch and all I can say is urgh! Don’t think I’ll be doing budget flying anytime soon. 

Don’t get me wrong, there were some excellent parts to flying cheap. The tickets were fantastically low priced. I even paid an extra £50 to get one piece of 20kg luggage checked in. And because Monarch know how much stuff goes with a mini person, they threw in an extra 10kg for free (thank you Monarch). They even let us take our pushchair all the way to the aircraft and then have that checked in (again free). We also got priority boarding as we had an infant, which was fantastic as we didn’t even have to pay for that!  Go here for Monarch’s policy for baby luggage and go here for tips on flying with a baby published on Monarch’s blog. 

So you might ask why I’m moaning? Well the seats in most budget airlines are so cramped and Monarch wasn’t an exception. I think I’d forgotten how cramped they can be otherwise I would have paid to get extra leg room.  It wasn’t fair on my 16 month old to keep him so cramped for almost 3 hours. 

Our journey to Alicante was peaceful as my Bubsy fell asleep. However, it was on the way back that he just couldn’t settle – probably because the flight didn’t work with his nap time. We’d downloaded so many videos on to our iPads/iPhones but no amount of Dave & Ava or Igglepiggle would settle my little tyrant. 

On top of that, the lady in the front seat was extra sensitive and told my husband to mind the baby 😦 every time we’d put anything away in the seat pocket, she’d think it was my baby kicking the seat. It’s a good thing she didn’t complain to me otherwise I would have had words! I think that experience has really put my off flying budget for the time being. 

On a positive note, the holiday itself was fab! 👍🏻