Reid & Robie

Above us, only sky.

– Motto of Liverpool John Lennon Airport

My Ryanair nightmare wasn’t over.

Every day for two weeks leading up to our anniversary trip to Dublin, I opened harassing emails from Ryanair asking, “Don’t you want to get through security faster?” or reminding me how I could save ten percent on an inflight meal if I paid for it now. But really, what kind of feast could the airline provide on a 40-minute flight?

Still more notices repeated the threat that unless I forked over cash for assigned seats, with the ones the airlines allocated us, Robie and I “likely wouldn’t be sitting together.” But after nearly three decades of marriage, if we couldn’t survive three quarters of an hour apart then what were we celebrating after all?

After successfully dodging several menacing notices, I was duped by one telling me I hadn’t checked in for the flight. But when I got online, the site asked for my credit card details or told me to wait until 24 hours before the flight departed.

I waited. And downloaded our boarding passes the day before we were scheduled to leave.

The next morning, I was excited about our first trip to Ireland. And filled with an overwhelming sense of fear that despite an entire career of working for, with, and around airlines as well as traveling millions of miles on them, I was in over my head with this one.

I double checked our boarding passes on my phone, used an app to confirm our backpacks conformed to the strict carryon restrictions of 40 x 20 x 25 cm and fit beneath the seat to ensure we weren’t charged “a fee of up to €75 or local currency equivalent at the boarding gate.” Then I plotted a route to the airport with plenty of time to wait through what Ryanair anticipated would be a very long line since I hadn’t paid extra for the Fastrack option.

Arriving three hours early, Robie and I discovered five people in line ahead of us at security. And while the family with three young kids took an extraordinary amount of time unloading liquids from their suitcases and backpacks and kids’ backpacks and suitcases, after eight minutes we cleared security.

Robie took a stroll around the terminal to check out the meager shopping and dining options while I waited patiently for the overhead reader board to tell us our gate. Because while my boarding pass notified me that the gate closed half an hour before the flight left, the board explained the gate announcement would only arrive 15 minutes ahead of that.

Scanning the hallway, I wondered how long it would take to the furthest gate.

To be fair, I cut my chops on some of the world’s largest, busiest, least walkable airports. Think Dallas-Ft. Worth, Madrid Barajas, Denver, London Heathrow, Atlanta Hartsfield and Mexico City where such fears are justified. But not at Liverpool John Lennon Airport where there are fewer gates than Dallas Love Field.

Three gates less to be exact.

Still, like a general analyzing the battlefield, I saw our mad dash to the gate wouldn’t require contending with the perpetual crowds lined up in front of Chik-fil-A and Whataburger or dodging the constant pick-up order chaos at the Starbuck’s kiosk. Because if 42,000 people passed through Love Field’s 20 gates every day, Liverpool looked lucky to get 42,000 in a month.

Forty-five minutes before Ryanair’s flight to Dublin there was still no sign of our departure gate. Forty-two minutes before departure, the reader board flashed Gate No. 17, and Robie and I took off for the furthest gate.

We needn’t have rushed.

Two lines were forming. One for Priority Boarding, an option I’d refused to add during the booking process, and the other labeled Unimportant Passengers’ Boarding Lane or something similar, and clearly where we belonged. Then with surprising efficiency, the gate agents herded everyone through the lines into a smaller space filled with stanchions and ropes and switchback queues. And once the gate closed, we all stood around in the cramped room waiting.

Because as is so often the case with airlines, there was a delay.

After five minutes the group of teens were strewn across a carpet that looked as though it hadn’t been replaced since the airport opened in 1933. Ten minutes in, a man in a business suit sat cross legged on the floor tapping his laptop. At the half-hour mark a woman in a skirt and long coat sat inelegantly atop her luggage. Because apparently people in Britain are used to this sort of treatment when flying.

Then once the doors finally opened, Robie and I discovered our next surprise.

Though we understood we were taking a calculated risk by moving to a place where it rained 171 days a year, Robie and I never expected an island in the North Atlantic to operate like England had suddenly been relocated to the sunny Caribbean or fair-weathered French Polynesia.

In tropical destinations around the globe, travelers expect to traipse up and down the stairs leading directly onto the tarmac. But in a country renowned for raining half the year, jet bridges are perplexingly rare. And the few airports that have them frequently opt not to use them. Instead, at Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick and Glasgow, airlines transport passengers by bus to covered, portable stairs.

Not Ryanair.

Low-cost carriers learned their business model from the airports they serve. And since airports charge for landing fees, overnight parking for airplanes, time at the gate, freight, passengers, office space, check-in counters, kiosks, baggage carrousels, and even security and baggage handling fees, is it any wonder those costs are now being passed on to travelers?

When it comes to boarding and deplaning, airports charge for the use of their rolling staircases, increase the fee for covered steps that limit passengers’ exposure to the elements, tack on more to ferry people in shuttle buses, and consider jet bridges a high-end luxury item. So until some airline figures out how to squeeze more money out of travelers by having them choose their preferred boarding method, low-cost carriers like Ryanair will always provide the cheapest alternative. And by splurging for two open-air stairs, they’re able to board quicker and save money and time at the gate. Especially when passengers are eager to find shelter from the rain.

According to the British Council, the UK’s famous weather doesn’t happen in any particular season. And on this fall day when we were scheduled to fly out of Liverpool, the local weatherman forecasted a monsoon.

As Robie and I clustered with the other travelers preparing to walk outside in a downpour, we seemed the only ones bewildered by the turn of events. All around us people quietly, dutifully donned jackets and hoods to stave off the storm. And once the gate attendant loosed the herd, I pulled out my trusty travel umbrella and dashed toward the metal steps at the back of the plane. As gales whipped the rain from every angle, my small shield failed to keep me dry, and the moment I reached the cover of the cabin, I shook the umbrella like a wet dog.

Drops flew everywhere. On the coffee pot, the cabinet labeled ‘Extra Cups’, the lavatory door, the fuselage ceiling. And on the perky young woman standing in front of me in a knee-length skirt and Ryanair windbreaker.

“In America we use jet bridges,” I explained. Then hoping to learn what to do next time, I added, “So, what is proper etiquette for boarding the plane in a deluge?”

Unfortunately, the drenched woman didn’t have time to respond. With the press of wet passengers pushing from behind, I was quickly forced down the aisle and only glimpsed her outstretched arm reaching for a stack of cocktail napkins. Still, it was more than I had to dry off.

When I found my “allocated” middle seat, it was wedged between two large passengers with no access to an armrest. The seatback button didn’t work, and the tray table looked like it had been broken since Tony Blair was prime minister. Yet this was exactly what I expected from low-cost carrier, Ryanair.

Getting soaked to board the plane was not.