'flying cheaply is increasingly an excercise in anticipating how airlines/airports might attempt to extort money from you in advance and making preperations accordingly '
Flying cheaply forces the airports to try and extract (not extort) money from you as they make practically nothing from the airlines. If cheap airline xxxxxxx pays next to nothing to the airport to land there, how else is the airport to make any money other than charging passengers for car parks, trolleys etc?