My Visit to EGNH…A Ryanair adventure…almost

Yesterday I flew up to Blackpool on Ryanair’s new service from Stansted. While I knew I was going to be flying on a Buzz BAe 146, I was suprised to find out that the whole service was being operated under the Buzz brand on behalf of Ryanair.

For me this was great news, I always loved Buzz and the service was fantastic. On the outbound we departed RWY 23 at EGSS at 0720, it was a quick flight, only 33 minutes. We landed on RWY 28 at EGNH. At first the landing seemed excellent, a slight crosswind, but nothing special, however the First Officer (who was female incidentally) proceeded to lower the noise wheel with such force that the Oxygen masks were released!

The airport it’s self is an odd place. It’s set out like an office really, but with a restuarant and bar! The traffic was vaired, mainly GA stuff, but Keenair had four departures and there were some heli movement as well. By the end of this month this should all change with the additional service to Dublin and Flybe to Belfast City. I would have taken some photos had my digital camera not have been stolen a couple of weeks ago.

The flight back was due to depart at 2025, but we left at 2015. Blackpool’s staff are very friendly and very efficient and so the turnaround was done in just 10 minutes. Before we boarded I was talking to one of the Flight Attendents and I asked her how she felt about the Ryanair take over. To my suprise she said that she was happy about it, she enjoys taking control of boarding which they didn’t have to do at Buzz and she said the pay is much better. We got talknig further and I explained that I’m training for my ATPL from the summer and she gave me a lot of helpful information and then urged me to join Ryanair!

The actual flight back was very smooth, the weather was beautiful, we flew back via HON over Birmingham, I couldn’t quite work out the STAR as we turned very late on short finals onto 23.
We landed right on time, however BAA messed things up as the ground team went to the wrong gate. We ended up being delayed by 35 minutes before they came and got us off the plane.

All in all it was a good day out, I’ve got my Blackpool Rock as well! EGNH is a great little airport, I think the infrastructure could do with a little improvement, bu it is very charactersitic. I hope to fly up again soon to see it in full swing with the new services!

Martin