Flights¶

All four flights are now booked. Wizz Air and Vueling excluded throughout, per request.

Who	When	From → To	Mode	Booking ref
AL	Wed 26 Aug 2026, 16:45 → 19:55	London Gatwick (LGW) → Barcelona (BCN)	easyJet, direct	Booked, £87.98 incl. cabin bag. See Alessio's solo start & meeting Elisabeth.
EHL	Fri 28 Aug 2026, 19:40 → 22:50	London Heathrow (LHR) → Barcelona (BCN)	Flight BA486, direct, 2h10m	Booked (BA Euro Traveller, £139 all-in).
EHL	Sun 6 Sep 2026, 10:10 → 11:15	Zaragoza (ZAZ) → London Stansted (STN)	Ryanair FR2566, direct	Booked (price not shared). Means an overnight in/near Zaragoza the night of 5 Sep — see Relaxed route: Castelldefels → Zaragoza.
AL	Tue 8 Sep 2026, 15:45 → 16:55	Zaragoza (ZAZ) → London Stansted (STN)	Ryanair FR2566, direct	Booked, €59.49 incl. cabin bag. See Alessio's solo start & meeting Elisabeth.

Route map¶

Flight (dashed, ✈ at midpoint)

Standing facts worth keeping in mind¶

ZAZ→STN (Ryanair FR2566) only runs Tue/Thu/Sun, at a different time each day — Tue 15:45, Thu 20:45, Sun 10:10 — and doesn't operate Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat at all (checked across 1–14 Sep 2026, live via Ryanair's fare-finder). Ryanair is the only airline flying Zaragoza↔London. Relevant if either return ever needs to move.
Elisabeth's Sun 6 Sep 10:10 departure is why an overnight in/near Zaragoza on 5 Sep is now part of the plan — see Relaxed route: Castelldefels → Zaragoza.
easyJet (LGW/LTN↔BCN) and British Airways (BCN↔LHR evenings) are real alternatives that were considered for these routes — Alessio's outbound went easyJet, Elisabeth's return went Ryanair rather than either.

Flights brainstorming — the research trail that led to the bookings above

Alessio — outbound (London → coast)¶

Booked: easyJet, LGW→BCN, Wed 26 Aug 2026, dep 16:45 → arr 19:55, £87.98 incl. cabin bag — found directly by Alessio, not one of the Ryanair options researched below. The Ryanair STN→REU/BCN rows below were the candidates that supported picking 26 Aug as the date (real Ryanair flights, checked live via Ryanair's own fare-finder, 20 Aug 2026) — kept for reference, no longer the live plan. Only one flight/day on each of these two routes at present, and neither route currently operates before 09:30 anyway, so nothing was excluded by the time rule here — every row below already complies.

Date	Route	Flight	Depart	Arrive	Price
Wed 26 Aug 2026	STN → REU	FR3842	11:50	15:05	£74.99
Thu 27 Aug 2026	STN → REU	FR3842	12:05	15:20	£97.87
Fri 28 Aug 2026	STN → REU	FR3842	10:35	13:50	£115.99
Wed 26 Aug 2026	STN → BCN	FR8216	12:25	15:40	£58.99
Thu 27 Aug 2026	STN → BCN	FR8214	17:35	20:50	£80.99
Fri 28 Aug 2026	STN → BCN	FR8216	21:25	00:40 (+1 day)	£69.99

28 Aug is Elisabeth's own arrival day (BA486) — listed for reference/price-comparison, not as a real "1–2 days early" option.

26 Aug was meaningfully cheaper than 27 Aug on both routes (£74.99 vs £97.87 for REU; £58.99 vs £80.99 for BCN) — real evidence that supported going 2 days early rather than 1, which is what got booked (via easyJet, above).

Loop variant (STN → ZAZ direct, not via the coast)¶

Date	Route	Flight	Depart	Arrive	Price
Thu 27 Aug 2026	STN → ZAZ	FR2565	16:55	20:10	£167.99

Only operates some days — no fare found for 26 or 28 Aug. Listed for completeness; this was the original loop-option flight, only relevant if the coast/wingfoil idea had been dropped entirely.

Alessio — return (coast/inland → London), departing 16:00 or later¶

Real Ryanair fares, filtered to the stated no-before-16:00 rule (checked live, 20 Aug 2026).

Date	Route	Flight	Depart	Arrive	Price
Fri 4 Sep 2026	REU → STN	FR3843	19:30	20:45	£70.99
Sun 6 Sep 2026	REU → STN	FR3843	17:15	18:30	£104.89
Mon 7 Sep 2026	REU → STN	FR3843	20:45	22:00	£68.99
Fri 4 Sep 2026	BCN → STN	FR8217	19:35	21:00	£71.99
Sat 5 Sep 2026	BCN → STN	FR8231	16:20	17:45	£61.99
Sun 6 Sep 2026	BCN → STN	FR8215	19:35	21:00	£116.99
Mon 7 Sep 2026	BCN → STN	FR8217	19:00	20:25	£67.99
Tue 8 Sep 2026	BCN → STN	FR9045	16:50	18:15	£55.99

Zaragoza (ZAZ) return — the day-of-week correction¶

An earlier version of this page claimed ZAZ→STN was always a 10:10 morning departure, based on only checking 4–8 Sep — too narrow a window to see the actual pattern. Checked properly across 1–14 Sep 2026: Ryanair's single daily ZAZ→STN flight (FR2566) only operates on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, at a different time each day, and doesn't run at all on Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat:

Day	Depart	Arrive	Example date/price	Compliant with no-before-16:00?
Tuesday	15:45	16:55	Tue 8 Sep, €59.49 — BOOKED (Alessio)	15 min short (15:45) — accepted as "decently-timed"
Thursday	20:45	21:50	Thu 10 Sep, £30.99	Yes — not taken, would've needed extending the trip
Sunday	10:10	11:15	Sun 6 Sep, £41.77	No — BOOKED anyway (Elisabeth), see below

Alessio booked Tue 8 Sep, accepting the 15-minutes-short timing rather than extending the trip ~2 days for Thursday's fully-compliant evening departure. Elisabeth ended up booking the Sunday 10:10 departure instead — see the table above and Relaxed route: Castelldefels → Zaragoza for what that means for the trip's last few days. Same weekly pattern repeats (also checked Thu 3 Sep: 20:45, £66.99; Tue 1 Sep: 15:45, £227.99 — Tuesday prices vary a lot). Ryanair is the only airline flying Zaragoza↔London at all (confirmed via web search — Wizz Air only appears as a Luton connection, not a direct flight, and is excluded anyway).

Note BCN on 6 Sep specifically: the cheapest BCN→STN fare that day is actually an earlier, non-compliant 10:35 departure (£80.99, excluded by the 16:00 rule) — the compliant 19:35 option costs more (£116.99). Every other date above already had its cheapest fare at a compliant time.

Elisabeth — return options (before she booked)¶

British Airways operates several BCN→LHR flights daily, all in the evening on the dates checked — real, scheduled flight numbers (via published timetables, checked 20 Aug 2026), but exact fares for a specific 2026 date weren't fetchable (britishairways.com blocks automated fetching):

Flight	Depart (BCN)	Arrive (LHR)
BA481	19:20	~21:00
BA483	20:35	~22:15
BA485	21:20	~23:00

The BCN↔Zaragoza train (~1h30–2h, ~€30 one-way) was the other alternative weighed against a flight. Elisabeth ended up booking the Ryanair ZAZ→STN Sunday 10:10 departure instead (see the table above) — neither BA nor the train.

Other carriers considered¶

Wizz Air, Vueling — excluded from every route above per request.
easyJet — flies London Gatwick/Luton ↔ Barcelona with real evening departures (e.g. a 17:25 LGW→BCN and an 18:30 last-departure LGW→BCN, per easyJet's own published route schedule, checked 20 Aug 2026) — this is what Alessio's outbound ended up booking on.
Jet2, TUI — not checked; these mostly serve regional UK airports and package holidays rather than the STN/LGW/LTN↔REU/BCN/ZAZ combinations relevant here.