Storm Isha ordeal: I'm an anxious flyer & this Wizz Air flight from Krakow did nothing to settle my nerves

Yet, just as I started to think about patting the nervous sweat from my palms, the pilot pulled the throttle and up the plane went, aborting its landing at the last minute. I'm a nervous flyer at the best of times and the imminent voice of the captain through the speakers reassuring us that an aborted landing was nothing unusual did little to ease my fears.

Nearly 24 hours later, with feet firmly on the ground in London, it's fair to say that perhaps the ordeal of flying in Storm Isha was a little predictable. On my last night in Krakow, before nodding off weary from a day of walking tours and Polish dumplings, a quick social media scroll showed me plenty of panic over the weather warnings issued for the UK.

It all looked pretty terrifying but I told myself it would just be social media working itself into a frenzy. I put it out of my mind until I boarded my plane the next day.

Even before taking off at 6pm, the pilot warned us that landing in London would be bumpy with dangerous winds already whipping around Gatwick. I've never been warned quite so early in advance of a potential issue landing but put it aside, trusting that all the many safety protocols would have been ticked off.

Approaching London, I braced myself for the turbulence but even as the seatbelt signs were switched on and passengers prepared to land, there seemed little to worry about... until we dropped through the clouds. The flight's first approach was a frightening experience.

There was silence in the cabin as the engine revved and we went through a series of drops provoking that roller coaster feeling in your tummy. Just as we neared the runway, we lurched back up into the sky. Passengers would have had every right to let out a stifled scream or be reaching for sick bags in front of them but it was a largely stoic performance from the 230 odd people who had left Krakow earlier that day.

The pilot and crew were calm too as they told us it was simply too difficult with the wind but hoped that in 10 minutes there would be a gap in the weather - my brief look online the night before had told me it would only get worse, so I wasn't too convinced by that idea.

As we circled, the wind was clearly getting stronger. Even above the clouds and out the thick of it, there was a constant rattle around the plane as we waited patiently. On a second approach, it was only really a half attempt before aborting once again.

After the second try, there was a period of 10-15 minutes with little information shared. We circled and circled and I later learnt from social media users tracking us online that there were a further two approaches in the direction of Gatwick without much of an attempt of a descent.

With nerves rising, passengers started to turn to one another, guessing what might be happening - stories of planes from Manchester to Dublin ending up in Paris and attempts to see the bright side of a potential visit to a random Northern European destination. I bonded with my neighbour over our favourite episodes of The Diary of a CEO podcast and Ivan Toney's cheeky return to Premier League action that weekend. That proved a vital distraction and eased the feelings of powerlessness as we bumped around the air.

Eventually, the Wizz Air captain told us that indeed it would be impossible to land at Gatwick and that we were all off to Eindhoven which has some travellers clueless as to which country that was in. As a football fanatic, I was aware of its location thanks to the club PSV Eindhoven - I told you all those hours of FIFA would come in handy one day, mum and dad.

Landing in Eindhoven was much easier with an overall feeling of relief to be out of the sky rather than anger at not being in London sweeping the plane, along with applause for the pilot. We'd been in the sky for just under five hours for a flight due to take just over two. "Welcome to Eindhoven, where the local time is 22:45," one of the cabin crew said over the speakers, whether that was delivered as a wicked joke or not only they will know.

The usual fracas followed when it comes to budget airlines and cancellations. A huge crowd gathered in the small airport with no clued-up staff to be seen. Eventually, at past midnight, customers were told that Wizz Air had failed to find hotels in an email.

It read: "We did everything we could to organise your hotel stay for the night which to our deepest regret was not successful. We contacted all the properties in the area; however, they were in a secluded area which does not offer any hotel accommodation near the airport. In case you booked accommodation on your own since the original time of departure of your flight, the cost will be reimbursed to you within a reasonable amount after submitting a claim with the respective collected receipts on our website."

I'd already taken the decision to splurge £70 on the Holiday Inn at the airport to get away from the stress and tucked into a pack of overpriced crisps and waffles from the hotel shop for dinner in a bid to calm down.

A search online before getting some sleep showed we were perhaps one of the luckier of flights affected with only British Airways appearing to land a plane around that time. Other WizzAir flights from Antalya, Istanbul and Sharm-El-Sheikh trying to land at Gatwick all went through ordeals even worse than us before heading elsewhere.

WizzAir rescheduled the flight for 11.30am the next day, which was then moved to 2.30pm, presumably to let Isha completely run its course. That flight went remarkably to plan with us up and down in less than an hour, the landing one of the smoothest I've had.

Once again, a round of applause echoed around the cabin. There were a number of free seats compared to the plane the night before which seemed completely full - I remembered some passengers heading straight for the last train to Amsterdam on arrival in Eindhoven, likely for a train home rather than facing the skies again.

While I won't be in any rush to be boarding a plane again, the WizzAir crew on board did a super job in very difficult conditions. We all got there in the end but I'm under no illusion that Storm Isha won that battle fair and square.