Aviation Discussion

[atillathehunn]

Just looked at the Wikipedia page to see who else flies to Mauritius from Europe and it would appear that there is a lot of new routes there being started this winter or spring 18. eurowings from Munich, KLM/air maritius to Amsterdam, Thompson with charters from a spread of places in Scandinavia, and this new BA route. They aren't daily routes but still, seems like quite a sizeable increase in capacity? is Mauritius going through the roof as a destination due to exchange rates or something'?

Destinations come and go. A place will be 'hot' for a bit and then cool off a bit.

Hopefully these island chains will become more popular and cheaper and it will drive down the prices. I'd love better flights to Madagascar as well

 

[Richard_B]

Destinations come and go. A place will be 'hot' for a bit and then cool off a bit.

Hopefully these island chains will become more popular and cheaper and it will drive down the prices. I'd love better flights to Madagascar as well

I had messed up and got Mauritius and the sechellyes mixed up when looking this up.

 

[Techniquest]

I think I speak for many forum members when I say that reading your trip reports is one of the highlights of this website. Personally I really looked forward to Monday nights to see the next instalment.

Genuinely touched by that comment, as I was by PMs I received and everyone's posts on this thread.

No I'm not back yet, but I have been bored today and needed to get some sort of sanity back and read this thread for updates. Well, and I needed to mention that I'm finally going to make my first visit to Spain in January! Booked a 4 night break with Jet2Holidays earlier from Birmingham to Alicante, £192 including breakfast and hold luggage which is a mighty fine deal. Paid £80 deposit with the remainder to come out at the end of October. For what I have included I reckon it's a good deal.

For the record, I was going to book with Ryanair, but they wanted £172 (or was it was £178?) for a 2 night break in Barcelona, with awful flight times. I'm still not sure which one I should have booked, but I did like Jet2 when I used them earlier this year. I chose them originally as Ryanair wanted £78 for a deposit, Jet2 a minimum of £60 but I made it £80 to make funds stretch further next month. I also have a social event to attend in October, hence the spreading of funds.

I hope I've chosen the better deal, and need to book a room for the night before my outward (and to be sensible for the return home too) flight, but we'll soon see. I suspect Barcelona is more interesting, and I had considered Malaga, but the choice of dates just didn't work with my week off.

Finally for now, two questions:

What is a F cabin? I've seen it mentioned on here and I'm clueless!

What is the food like on Jet2? I have fairly long flights with them and some of the meals (the chicken tikka masala in particular sounds good) appeal but I've not yet booked any.

Oh, and yes there WILL be more exploration of the world in 2018. I haven't worked out what, where or when yet of course!

 

[atillathehunn]

Genuinely touched by that comment, as I was by PMs I received and everyone's posts on this thread.

No I'm not back yet, but I have been bored today and needed to get some sort of sanity back and read this thread for updates. Well, and I needed to mention that I'm finally going to make my first visit to Spain in January! Booked a 4 night break with Jet2Holidays earlier from Birmingham to Alicante, £192 including breakfast and hold luggage which is a mighty fine deal. Paid £80 deposit with the remainder to come out at the end of October. For what I have included I reckon it's a good deal.

For the record, I was going to book with Ryanair, but they wanted £172 (or was it was £178?) for a 2 night break in Barcelona, with awful flight times. I'm still not sure which one I should have booked, but I did like Jet2 when I used them earlier this year. I chose them originally as Ryanair wanted £78 for a deposit, Jet2 a minimum of £60 but I made it £80 to make funds stretch further next month. I also have a social event to attend in October, hence the spreading of funds.

I hope I've chosen the better deal, and need to book a room for the night before my outward (and to be sensible for the return home too) flight, but we'll soon see. I suspect Barcelona is more interesting, and I had considered Malaga, but the choice of dates just didn't work with my week off.

Finally for now, two questions:

What is a F cabin? I've seen it mentioned on here and I'm clueless!

What is the food like on Jet2? I have fairly long flights with them and some of the meals (the chicken tikka masala in particular sounds good) appeal but I've not yet booked any.

Oh, and yes there WILL be more exploration of the world in 2018. I haven't worked out what, where or when yet of course!

I can't comment on value - but it seems about right - or even good value. There is still plenty to see down in Alicante - grab a rental car for next to nothing at that time of year - and head into the smaller towns and cities. Barcelona is definitely the city with more going on - but in January the weather will be better in Alicante!

F cabin refers to First Class. J is business, Y is whY (economy). W is usually Premium Economy.

Can't comment on the food, but you can probably get something better at the airport.

And to add: great to see you even temporarily back in this sub forum.

 

[Bald Rick]

Anyone been on an A320neo yet?

EZY have two in service, one based at each of Luton and Gatwick. The Luton craft, G-UZHA, seems to be doing three trips a day, but not on any particular pattern. It is noticeably quieter than the regular EZY A320s when it flies over my house, and I wondered if it was noticeably quieter on board also.


In other news, I see that Luton Airport has started enabling works for the new transit, relocating the airport perimeter road on the north side of the runway.

 

[Bald Rick]

No I'm not back yet, but I have been bored today and needed to get some sort of sanity back and read this thread for updates. Well, and I needed to mention that I'm finally going to make my first visit to Spain in January! Booked a 4 night break with Jet2Holidays earlier from Birmingham to Alicante, £192 including breakfast and hold luggage which is a mighty fine deal. Paid £80 deposit with the remainder to come out at the end of October. For what I have included I reckon it's a good deal.

Welcome back, if only temporarily.

If you fancy trying out the Spanish high speed network, there are AVEs from Alicant to Madrid, takes about 2h30.

There is also a tram-train to Benidorm, metre gauge, takes just over an hour. Quite an interesting route via the beach front in places (like Blackpool, but nice) and then onto something more like a proper railway with tunnels etc up to Benidorm. Beyond Benidrom the line continues to Denia - another hour and a half or so. This is a different service, a diesel tram-train, the line goes over the interior via a few hills and tunnels. Alicant - Denia is about 3h30 including the connection. https://www.tramalicante.es/page.php

Save Barca for another day. Well, a week.

 

[ld0595]

Anyone been on an A320neo yet?

EZY have two in service, one based at each of Luton and Gatwick. The Luton craft, G-UZHA, seems to be doing three trips a day, but not on any particular pattern. It is noticeably quieter than the regular EZY A320s when it flies over my house, and I wondered if it was noticeably quieter on board also.

.

I was on a Frontier A320NEO in January between Vegas and Orlando. (Worst flight I've ever had - 4 hours of non stop turbulence!) It's definitely a lot quieter on board - a huge improvement over the CEO. Other than that, I didn't notice a huge amount of difference.

 

[AlterEgo]

Anyone been on an A320neo yet?

EZY have two in service, one based at each of Luton and Gatwick. The Luton craft, G-UZHA, seems to be doing three trips a day, but not on any particular pattern. It is noticeably quieter than the regular EZY A320s when it flies over my house, and I wondered if it was noticeably quieter on board also.


In other news, I see that Luton Airport has started enabling works for the new transit, relocating the airport perimeter road on the north side of the runway.

I've been on an SAS A320neo.

Nice but spartan cabin. In-seat charging in economy is great. Not sure if the Easyjet versions have that. Can't say I noticed any noise differential.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I had messed up and got Mauritius and the sechellyes mixed up when looking this up.

Mauritius is gaining popularity for people who want an Indian Ocean holiday but can't quite stump up the Maldives or the Seychelles. There's enough business for Emirates to send the A380 there.

Sri Lanka, where I went on honeymoon, is seeing something similar but is a bit further behind.

 

[gsnedders]

Speaking of which, anyone been on a CSeries yet? Was debating booking a somewhat silly route to get to go on one, but I'm not quite sure I can justify that.

 

[Butts]

Flew Birmingham to Frankfurt with Lufthansa on Saturday and back on Sunday to visit the Motor Show and City.

A tale of "2 journeys"

Outward allocated 2 Exit Seats gratis which was nice as they charge £22 each to book them in advance !!. Airbus 200 got a coffee , oj and pastry on the way over - still free !!. Plane was only about 75% loaded (0615 out)

Inward Son and I separated - both "piggy in the middle" 2 rows apart. The Airbus 200 was literally full :cry: Got half a sandwich and a bottle of pilsner on the way back - no spirits but better than nowt.

One word of warning at Birmingham Airport don't hang around in the £2 pick up Car Park at the front by the terminals. First 10 mins are £2 but my silly ex-wife who was picking us up spent 20mins costing £15

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is your son an adult? If not, I can't stand the "separate families unless you pay" thing. People should be reseated to sit families together (with compensation if necessary), because if there is an accident requiring fast evacuation you can be sure the parents will be going against the flow to save their kids rather than just getting out. That's seriously, seriously dangerous and could get people killed.

 

[Butts]

Is your son an adult? If not, I can't stand the "separate families unless you pay" thing. People should be reseated to sit families together (with compensation if necessary), because if there is an accident requiring fast evacuation you can be sure the parents will be going against the flow to save their kids rather than just getting out. That's seriously, seriously dangerous and could get people killed.

My son is 26

I checked in online on the way out when it opened 23 hours before departure. However coming back we checked in using the machine at Frankfurt a couple of hours before the flight. It was full and they even asked if people would volunteer to be "bumped". In the end this did not happen.

If they had offered me the 250 Euros , A night in a Hotel and a flight back the following day I would have taken it. However my Son had to work the next day so would have been unable to avail himself of the offer.

Really disappointing it never came to fruition

 

[berneyarms]

Flew Birmingham to Frankfurt with Lufthansa on Saturday and back on Sunday to visit the Motor Show and City.

A tale of "2 journeys"

Outward allocated 2 Exit Seats gratis which was nice as they charge £22 each to book them in advance !!. Airbus 200 got a coffee , oj and pastry on the way over - still free !!. Plane was only about 75% loaded (0615 out)

Inward Son and I separated - both "piggy in the middle" 2 rows apart. The Airbus 200 was literally full :cry: Got half a sandwich and a bottle of pilsner on the way back - no spirits but better than nowt.

One word of warning at Birmingham Airport don't hang around in the £2 pick up Car Park at the front by the terminals. First 10 mins are £2 but my silly ex-wife who was picking us up spent 20mins costing £15

Do you mean Airbus A320?

There's no such aircraft as an Airbus 200!

 

[Butts]

Do you mean Airbus A320?

There's no such aircraft as an Airbus 200!

Glad you spotted and pointed out my faux pas

 

[zuriblue]

Speaking of which, anyone been on a CSeries yet? Was debating booking a somewhat silly route to get to go on one, but I'm not quite sure I can justify that.

Yes, I've been on a couple of LX ones. They're quite nice.

Basically 3 + 2 seating, quite quiet, large windows at a decent height (as opposed to the CRJ2/3s, which are down by your knees somewhere). Bins are quite big for a small jet. (I do miss the old Avros though, especially the dinosaur roar of the flaps)

Nice little feature, there's a built in screen in the headlining for the airshow/etc but it's not a lot of use - basically it's slightly bigger than an iphone screen so you need good eyesight to read it.

The other new one I experienced recently was the SSJ100. (SN from BRU to EDI) That's very old school, cramped, small bins very hard seats and quite loud.

 

[fowler9]

Genuinely touched by that comment, as I was by PMs I received and everyone's posts on this thread.

No I'm not back yet, but I have been bored today and needed to get some sort of sanity back and read this thread for updates. Well, and I needed to mention that I'm finally going to make my first visit to Spain in January! Booked a 4 night break with Jet2Holidays earlier from Birmingham to Alicante, £192 including breakfast and hold luggage which is a mighty fine deal. Paid £80 deposit with the remainder to come out at the end of October. For what I have included I reckon it's a good deal.

For the record, I was going to book with Ryanair, but they wanted £172 (or was it was £178?) for a 2 night break in Barcelona, with awful flight times. I'm still not sure which one I should have booked, but I did like Jet2 when I used them earlier this year. I chose them originally as Ryanair wanted £78 for a deposit, Jet2 a minimum of £60 but I made it £80 to make funds stretch further next month. I also have a social event to attend in October, hence the spreading of funds.

I hope I've chosen the better deal, and need to book a room for the night before my outward (and to be sensible for the return home too) flight, but we'll soon see. I suspect Barcelona is more interesting, and I had considered Malaga, but the choice of dates just didn't work with my week off.

Finally for now, two questions:

What is a F cabin? I've seen it mentioned on here and I'm clueless!

What is the food like on Jet2? I have fairly long flights with them and some of the meals (the chicken tikka masala in particular sounds good) appeal but I've not yet booked any.

Oh, and yes there WILL be more exploration of the world in 2018. I haven't worked out what, where or when yet of course!

Sounds like a good deal Tech. What time is your flight? My sister is cabin crew with Easyjet and the Liverpool to Alicante flight is notoriously lively, god knows why they have it so late in the day both ways. One of my mates is travelling around Andelucia at the mo which isn't a million miles from there and there is plenty of opportunity for train travel and it is a beautiful part of the world. I hope you have an amazing time.

 

[Crawley Ben]

Norwegian Air (UK) launched their first flight between Gatwick & Singapore earlier today using 787 equipment (4x weekly). My colleague went down to the gate and managed to grab a slice of cake that was on offer (she didn't bring back anyway for me though :cry

Cheers

Ben

 

[gsnedders]

I was looking for tomorrow just as a vague look. All of tomorrow's Ryanair flights to Edinburgh from STN are sold out, as is Saturday. While Monday's headline fare is £28, that's in the evening, the morning flight is about £80, which is consistent with the competition.

To be fair, I don't often fly down to London, so I don't look that often.

Contrary to my post around a fortnight ago, the food on BA6 in WTP from NRT ("Tokyo" Narita) to LHR (on a 787-9) was good; one of the options for the main meal was what I'd hated last time so I went for the other, and both meals were some of the best I've had on a plane in a long while!

 

[ainsworth74]

Just a quick reminder that the Ryanair balls up is of sufficient magnitude to warrant it's own thread which can be found here. To avoid discussing the same thing in two places can anyone who wishes to discuss the Ryanair debacle use the dedicated thread.

Many thanks!

 

[ModernRailways]

Of course what will actually happen is the poor bugger will shell out for a Taxi get there about 6.30am to find no queue at security and the flight will not board till 8am....

But if he chances it - sods law it will all go pete tong :roll:

I ended up chancing it - a friend offered me a lift but their shift got changed and I wanted the thrill

I arrived at the Airport, went straight upstairs and there was a snaking line for boarding passes getting scanned just prior to security but the staff were processing everyone quickly and we never stopped moving (albeit slowly). Got to security, again there was a small queue but it was flowing well and it took probably 2-3 minutes to get to a security desk. Got through and then straight down to the gate for my flight where they hadn't yet started boarding.

Arrived at the Airport at 0653, had completed security at 0707, and was at the gate at 0711. Probably the quickest I've got through an Airport!

 

[Butts]

I ended up chancing it - a friend offered me a lift but their shift got changed and I wanted the thrill

I arrived at the Airport, went straight upstairs and there was a snaking line for boarding passes getting scanned just prior to security but the staff were processing everyone quickly and we never stopped moving (albeit slowly). Got to security, again there was a small queue but it was flowing well and it took probably 2-3 minutes to get to a security desk. Got through and then straight down to the gate for my flight where they hadn't yet started boarding.

Arrived at the Airport at 0653, had completed security at 0707, and was at the gate at 0711. Probably the quickest I've got through an Airport!

Who Dares Wins (sometimes ) - well done but don't arrive that close to the wire again unless you are in Barra !!!

 

[atillathehunn]

I ended up chancing it - a friend offered me a lift but their shift got changed and I wanted the thrill

I arrived at the Airport, went straight upstairs and there was a snaking line for boarding passes getting scanned just prior to security but the staff were processing everyone quickly and we never stopped moving (albeit slowly). Got to security, again there was a small queue but it was flowing well and it took probably 2-3 minutes to get to a security desk. Got through and then straight down to the gate for my flight where they hadn't yet started boarding.

Arrived at the Airport at 0653, had completed security at 0707, and was at the gate at 0711. Probably the quickest I've got through an Airport!

Congrats on making it - not sure I'd trust myself to pull it off again, though!

Monarch appear to be in their now annual financial melt down.

Wouldn't surprise me if this is the year they finally go. EasyJet and Wizz I'm sure are going to make an aggressive offer on their A320s so they can expand to fill the void left by Ryanair on some routes.

 

[theageofthetra]

An AF A380 has had an outer enigne blow most of its housing away mid flight. Have a look on Alex Macheras twitter for pics. No idea yet if it happened at bird strike altitude

 

[fowler9]

I ended up chancing it - a friend offered me a lift but their shift got changed and I wanted the thrill

I arrived at the Airport, went straight upstairs and there was a snaking line for boarding passes getting scanned just prior to security but the staff were processing everyone quickly and we never stopped moving (albeit slowly). Got to security, again there was a small queue but it was flowing well and it took probably 2-3 minutes to get to a security desk. Got through and then straight down to the gate for my flight where they hadn't yet started boarding.

Arrived at the Airport at 0653, had completed security at 0707, and was at the gate at 0711. Probably the quickest I've got through an Airport!

Ha ha, Glad you made it. Be careful though mate, I actually found out today that my friends missed flight in Amsterdam cost him over £500.

 

[gsnedders]

An AF A380 has had an outer enigne blow most of its housing away mid flight. Have a look on Alex Mancheiras twitter for pics. No idea yet if it happened at bird strike altitude

This covers the incident; fan disc totally gone, at cruising altitude. Almost certainly mechanical failure.

Notably, an Engine Alliance engine, versus the Rolls Royce engine on QF32, so we've now had uncontained failures of both engines.

 

[theageofthetra]

This covers the incident; fan disc totally gone, at cruising altitude. Almost certainly mechanical failure.

Notably, an Engine Alliance engine, versus the Rolls Royce engine on QF32, so we've now had uncontained failures of both engines.

Thx Alex just confirmed that it was at cruise. Is this a potential grounding?

 

[fowler9]

Meanwhile the M4 was shut for 11 hours after one person was killed and 2 others were injured in a crash. Also a drunk driver has injured 3 people after driving in to an internet cafe. Headline news though is a planes engine blowing up and no one being hurt. Which form of transport are people more afraid of and why?

 

[theageofthetra]

Meanwhile the M4 was shut for 11 hours after one person was killed and 2 others were injured in a crash. Also a drunk driver has injured 3 people after driving in to an internet cafe. Headline news though is a planes engine blowing up and no one being hurt. Which form of transport are people more afraid of and why?

Only in the UK would a motorway be shut for 11 hours. On privately run French Autoroutes the traffic is kept moving- including on my last trip past an obviously dead biker.

 

[theageofthetra]

Meanwhile the M4 was shut for 11 hours after one person was killed and 2 others were injured in a crash. Also a drunk driver has injured 3 people after driving in to an internet cafe. Headline news though is a planes engine blowing up and no one being hurt. Which form of transport are people more afraid of and why?

In many parts of the UK I would say unlicenced , uninsured and ultra low IQ drivers are a bigger risk.