BA Connect/Iberia – BHX-BCN-PMI-BHX-BCN

Evening all!

I rarely write a Trip Report nowadays but right now I thought what the hell!? why not when all this information is fresh in my mind. Anyway here it is and I hope you enjoy.

07/08/06

Birmingham International – Barcelona
BA1796/IB7590
RJ100 (G-BZAY)

Barcelona – Palma De Mallorca
IB1724
MD-88 (EC-FIH)

As you can tell from my signature and from the forum meet thread me Dan (wannabe pilot) and Stuart (RIPConcorde) had a meet in Palma De Mallorca, this was interesting for me as I wasn’t flying charter or loco which I’m used too. I flew BACON to BCN and then onwards to PMI with IB, first time using T2 at BHX and flying BACON for that matter, arrived at BHX at 8am and headed for the desks. Check in was an absolute breeze, no queues, just about five desks or so open for all BA flights and I walked straight up to it and my baggage was checked through all the way to PMI. The baggage belt in this case were not working so I had to take it to a gentleman at the other end of the desks and give it to him.

So long to my bag and upstairs into the departure lounge which I was quite looking foreward too, security was a breeze and I was through that in less than a minute. T2 departure lounge was nothing incredible but I liked it, less busy and you could see that T2 seems to handle ‘different’ passengers, couples, families with older kids etc etc.

At this point it was only 8:10am! so still had to kill two hours for my 10:20am departure, I had heard views of the ramp were not great from T2 departures and that was the case but you could make out most things, quite a sight to see two Onur Air A300s parked on 40 and 41 of T1 aswell.

Anyway departure time came and boarding commenced at 10am onto G-BZAY (no ‘BA CONNECT’ titles! grr). Had seat 17A, the RJ100 is actually alot bigger than you think inside with the 3+3 leather seating, pushed back on time at 1020 with a full load and headed for runway 33.

For the first time ever at BHX I was actually in a departure queue behind an Onur Air A300, Flybe BAe146, Flybe Dash 8 and a bmibaby B733 and we were actually didn’t get onto the runway untill 1040 and off we went! quite nifty little things the RJs and we rotated after about 6000ft of runway or so and we were on our way!

Soon enough we were in the cruise at FL310, at this point the crew pointed out that they would be handing out menus to anyone who wanted to purchase food or drink, I got mine (obviously) and had a look, can’t remember everything on there but it included full English breakfast, a pizza slice, chocolate muffin, flapjacks and choclate bars plus the usual tea, coffee and alchohol etc.

I got myself a Diet Coke and I wanted to buy the Dairy Milk chocolate bar before being informed they had been removed because of the recebt salmonella scare at Cadburys and them recalling quite alot of thier products (random fact for you :dev2:) but I opted for the Galaxy chocolate muffin instead 😀 all for the cost of about £1.60 if I remember correctly.

Soon after that enjoyable snack I fell asleep awaking just before our decent into BCN, fantastic views of the landscape and soon enough we were on the ILS for 25L, smooth touchdown and exited on a high speed taxiway.

First thing that hit me is the construction of the massive new Terminal at BCN with the new control tower in the centre, we followed an IB A320 towards the Terminals where we made a left and parked on a remote stand next to a Vueling A320, I wanted a cockpit visit but with two buses waiting outside to whisk us to the terminal I didn’t want to hold it up so got off.

I always enjoy the bus rides across the ramp, especially somewhere busy like BCN and taxiied past a DL 763, BA 752, KLM 739 among the usual other stuff. After a few minutes we went into the terminal and I headed up to departures aread M1 for my next flight which at this point was over two hours away.

This gave me a good chance to explore the lounge of which there is an alot to do but it isn’t too enthralling but you get preety good views of the ramp through alot of glass, poles etc. After what seemed likes forever the time came for boarding IB1724 to PMI, an MD-88! We were bussed over to the aircraft EC-FIH on a remote stand, and boarded the aircraft via the airstairs on the left hand side. First thing that hit you was the smell surprisingly, not pleasant at all! just the smell of people who were hot and sweaty being bussed back and forth between PMI :D. The seating this time was 2+3 and I had 18A this time just ahead of the wing, I was also hoping no-one would sit next to me but hey we can’t have everything.

Soon after we were packed up and ready to go and made our way out to RWY 25R, now this was interesting when we came to the threshold. We parked up beside 25R with a IB 320 to the left of us and an IB MD-87 to the left of that, after a few minutes the MD-87 rolled onto the runway and took off and another company MD took it’s place at the hold, the IB 320 to our left then rolled onto the runway which was then followed by the MD and a further two more IB 320s rolled into their parking positions before we were allowed to go. See the picture below, it seems this is prioity departure system of some sort maybe? meaning the more delayed flights go out first etc or maybe because we were domestic we weren’t so important!? not too sure.

Either way we started rolling and rotated, it wasn’t as powerful a departure as I was expecting but that was probably due to the fact it was a half an hour flight with the minimal of fuel etc etc but on the plus side we got a great overview of the construction of the new terminal.

It was quick climb to cruise level which were at for the best part of two minutes before we started to desend again into Palma, great overviews of the Island anyway which at this point was covered in varied cloud and it was slightly bumpy approach into RWY 24L.

After exiting it was a short taxi to the gate and the airport was surprisingly devoid of aircraft except an Air Europa B738 at the gate and a GSM B736 following us in. While exiting the aircraft I had hoped for a cockpit visit but the door was firmly locked with a stewardess blocking the door so I passed on that option but that dissapointment quickly dissapeared as I was Palma! at last, I was quite thankful to find my bag waiting for me here too.