As I already mentioned in my Indian trip report, I quite enjoy writing these reports.

So with no big trip planned at the moment, I decided to write up a trip report of our trip to Malta which started almost exactly one year ago today and of which I have a ton of photo’s.

However, with the flights being intra-European economy, this installment will be mostly text as these aren’t the most exiting flights.

We have the habit of taking a short trip to the sun during the Easter holidays and last year was no different. As Easter fell quite early in the year, we had only five days available and wanted to see some sun, we looked for a sunny destination within a short flying time from Brussels.

After looking into many options, we decided on Malta as the last time we visited the island before was 28 years ago (when I was 3 years old) so it would be fun to go and look what had changed.

In order to get there we looked for flights that would maximize our time on the island, leaving on Easter Sunday and returning on the next Thursday.

Unfortunately there is only one direct flight from Brussels to Malta on Air Malta which leaves in the evening arriving in Malta around 9 pm which would eliminate our whole first day. So, the best alternative was to book a ticket with Expedia, flying Lufthansa from Brussels to Frankfurt and connecting on the Frankfurt to Brussels flight which would land us on Malta just before noon. Return would be on Air Malta leaving Malta at 4pm and arriving in Brussels at 7pm.

However, some events would change our plans. We were leaving on March 27, 2017 but some terrorists decided to attack Brussels airport on March 22, 2017. Luckily they didn’t wait until the Easter Holidays during which time the airport would be packed. As a result of the attacks, the airport was closed down, but with 5 days to go before our flight I was sure they would reopen in time for us not to alter our plans.

However, instead of giving a clear time frame regarding the reopening of the airport, authorities kept pushing the opening date one day at a time and on Friday night the opening date was pushed for another two days and we received a message from Lufthansa that our flight was indeed cancelled. So I immediately got on the phone with Lufthansa customer service (on the German phone line, the Belgian line was constantly unavailable and even the German number took about an hour to get through).

Together with the customer service agent I went to look for all alternative options to get us in Malta on Sunday, trying to leave from a surrounding airport like Paris, Lille, Köln, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam which they could accommodate us on but not on Sunday. Changing our departure airport would push our departure with a couple of days. So in the end I decided on the only remaining option, being just cancelling the first leg from Brussels to Frankfurt and just drive to Frankfurt an join or flight from Frankfurt to Brussels from their, with the idea to fly back to Brussels on Air Malta and then take a plane or train the next weekend to recuperate my car in Frankfurt.

So with all set and done and the flight leaving Frankfurt at 9.25 am, we decided to leave home at 2.30 am for the 500 km drive to Frankfurt allowing plenty of time for any traffic. However, there is one thing I love about Germany and that’s the Autobahn. So after two hours we crossed the border into Germany and from there it was cruising between 200 and 250 km/hour putting us into Frankfurt airport about four hours before our flight.

One thing I noticed as odd, coming from Belgium were terror alert was at the maximum level at that moment, was that there seemed to be minimal security at Frankfurt Airport (even on Malta the access road to the airport was secured by military, but no such thing in Germany).

Check in was very swift and an automated check-in desk and we were through security in no time and having no lounge access decided to have some croissants at a very overpriced airport restaurant.

After waiting it out, the flight was fortunately on time. In managed to check us in to row 5, just behind business class. Flight was very smooth, with a sandwich or a piece of very tasty apple cake and two drink rounds and during the last part nice views of the Italian coast and Sicily before landing on time in Malta.

As I said nothing exited about intra-European economy class, but Lufthansa offers a solid economy class product with free food and drinks (take an example on that e.g. Iberia, Brussels,…), performing on time and flexible to find a solution in difficult times. The price of the Brussels-Frankfurt portion was paid back a couple of weeks later (although took some phone calls as the ticket was booked through Expedia who had to be conferenced in also before being able to process the rebate).

Next installment will cover our lodging, the Grand Hotel Excelsior and Valletta and will include pics with the story.