I have actually only ever flown with Fly-may-be once before, and that was to Duesseldorf. To be fair they didn’t cancel my flight, just delayed it for an hour and then, when I finally got back to Birmingham, let us all off the aircraft and into a holding lounge, the door of which was locked so that we were trapped and could not exit into the baggage reclaim area for a good half an hour.

Well, Fly-may-be have not failed to disappoint this morning! Upon checking in I was informed that the Stuttgart flight had been “combined” with the Hamburg flight “for greater efficiency”. Right. Not very efficient for me, I’m afraid, since I’ve paid to be taken to Stuttgart and you’re now taking me to Hamburg. I enquired as to what I was supposed to do when I got to Hamburg. The check out girl was unsure. “It’s not very far from Stuttgart,” she said reassuringly. “You can probably take a taxi”.

Erm, anyone with a rudimentary grasp of European geography will be able to see that it is difficult to choose two German cities which are as far apart as Hamburg and Stuttgart! Must be a good 500 miles and given that the 10 mile taxi ride from my house to the airport just set me back £25, I didn’t fancy it. I said that wasn’t satisfactory and could I please speak to someone with a better grasp of the situation.

She didn’t look very impressed but got on the phone. The person on the phone told her he thought the plane was landing in Hamburg, then taking off again and flying to Stuttgart. Right, okay that’s an improvement but it’s still going to constitute a not inconsiderable delay and it’s not really good enough. I asked what time I would be expected to arrive in Stuttgart. The guy on the other end of the phone didn’t know, and hung up.

I politely requested that check out girl find this information out for me. Checkout girl was not very happy because she had a big queue and couldn’t really seem to understand why it mattered. I tried to explain that I had someone meeting me at the other end. She sighed and called someone else, who said it should be there at 8am. Considering that it wasn’t scheduled to arrive in the best possible case scenario until 10am (factoring in the time difference) I explained that I thought this was improbable. Nevertheless, take it or leave it, that was the only response I was going to get and so I decided to cut my losses and go to the departure lounge to drink one of those iced coffee milkshakey things. Not from Starbucks

I am very angry. If I travel with Ryanair or Easyjet and get this kind of service, I don’t really feel outraged because the way I see it, I’ve paid so little for the flight that I don’t have the moral high ground if I expect anything better. But this is quite frankly unacceptable. Flybe is not in my opinion a budget airline. I have never seen them offer a single for less than £60, and this return, booked a good 16 weeks in advance, cost me £150 which was the best price I was going to get. That really isn’t budget. They are simply a poor airline who try to label themselves as budget to excuse their appalling levels of customer service. I still have no idea where I am going or what time I am going to arrive at my destination, and this is the last time I will be gracing them with my custom.