Like many people, I had become fearful of flying out of the UK following reports of huge delays, cancellations and missed flights. Luckily, I wasn't flying out of Manchester Airport and I wasn't going to one of the main foreign tourist hotspots - although Budapest is well worth a visit any time of the year.
With my family's trip to Hungary booked for an easyJet flight from Gatwick at 11.55am on Sunday (April 10), we were prepared to get to the airport in plenty of time. In the end, we thought getting there the day before should just give us enough time for any road/airport chaos.
So, together with my wife and two children, I booked into the Travelodge at the airport (just five minutes from the car park) and had valet parking booked so it was just a five minute walk to check-in. We had plenty of time so we thought we had done all we could have done.
And we had. Because it all went to plan after driving down from our home in Gloucestershire on Saturday afternoon to arrive at our hotel at around 5pm on Saturday ready for dinner. This left us plenty of wriggle room for our flight the following lunchtime.
Speaking to people in the Travelodge we weren't the only ones who decided to take the risk out of a relatively long drive to the airport. Another family had driven up on Saturday from Somerset to stay the night before their noon flight on Sunday.
In fact, we need not have worried. Because after our short drive to the airport car park and our short walk to departures, the time from being able to check-in to coming out of security was about 10 minutes.
It meant we had left our luggage at 9.07am and were at security by 9.10am No delays at security meant we were clear about five minutes. This gave us plenty of time to relax in the airport before our flight was called.
The airport seemed relatively quiet and the longest queues we faced where in Pret for our flight sandwiches. Even boarding was straightforward and we only had a short wait on the runway with the pilot telling us Gatwick was 'very busy' but we departed about 12.20pm for our two hour flight to Budapest.
And once we got to Budapest, there was only a short ten minute wait to go through their border controls and maybe 15 minutes for our luggage to appear. And then, despite the two days of travelling, our holiday could begin with us relaxed if a bit tired.
