Just five days after returning from Dublin, I was back at Birmingham airport to fly to Amsterdam and try another new airline, KLM. KLM is the Dutch flag carrier and in 2019 celebrated its 100th birthday, with the airline being the oldest in continuous operation with the same name. KLM operates up to five return flights a day from its Amsterdam hub to Birmingham and we were booked onto the early afternoon departure, which is generally operated by KLM subsidiary, KLM Cityhopper with one of their Embraer E-jets.

After being lucky with the weather whilst exploring Dublin over the previous two days, I woke up early on the Monday morning to the sound of heavy rain outside the window. Thankfully before I left the BnB the rain had let up and only a light drizzle accompanied me for my walk back to the nearby stop for the AirLink bus.

Towards the end of February, I was lucky enough to become rather familiar with Birmingham airport, flying from it two weekends in a row for international trips. The first of these trips was a short hop across the Irish Sea to the capital of the emerald isle, Dublin, flying with Ireland’s national carrier Aer Lingus.

Having arrived in Vienna on a flight from Kiev, I had a couple of hours before my onward flight with Austrian back to London. After letting the chaos of disembarkation happen around me, I was one of the last of the aircraft, however I quickly made my way through the transfers process and was back in the departure lounge about 10 minutes after alighting.

After a fascinating time in the Ukrainian capital, it was time to head to the airport for my flight home. Having flown to Kiev with Lufthansa, I opted to fly home with another of the Lufthansa Group subsidiaries, and fellow Star Alliance member, Austrian Airlines. Austrian are one of the mid-sized European flag carriers with a fleet of 82 aircraft (compared to the 300 of its parent) and, from its Vienna hub, offers flights to a range of destinations across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America.

After having finally arrived at Frankfurt following my delayed flight from London, I followed the connections signs for the first time and wondered what laid ahead of me. Speaking to friends before travelling, I’d mentioned my booked 45-minute connection and had been wished luck as Frankfurt was supposedly a horrendous airport to transfer through. Having missed my original flight out of the German city, I was under a lot less pressure with 3 hours to kill and so was a lot more relaxed about the whole process.