LPL-TFS-LPL with AEA (Part 1)

This was my first ever holiday to Tenerife and was booked 2 weeks prior to departure. We booked with Thomsonfly who informed us that Air Europa were operating their flights until 1st May. We booked a package with them to the Atlantida Apartments. Soon enough, the day came for us to go on holiday, Good Friday was the day we left.

14/4/06
AEA286
EC-HJQ
ETD: 12:30
ATD: 12:07
ETA: 16:50
ATA: 16:52
SFT: 4:20
AFT: 4:45
Seat: 13A
I was expecting a 738 with winglets, as all flights to/from LPL with AEA in the winter had been with winglets. We set off for the airport around 9:30. It was a luxury to fly from our local airport instead of MAN, albeit it’s 5 minutes quicker to get to MAN because of the motorway. I’ve never flown from LPL before so and I’d never seen it before either! It seemed strange to be arriving in front of here rather than Terminal 1 at MAN. We unloaded our stuff from our car and put it onto a trolley before heading inside to join the long queue for check-in. Our queue moved quicker than the other one and we were soon checking in our pieces of baggage. We got our boardiing cards and I got the window seat! We headed up the first set of escalators, past the statue of John Lennon and then up the second flight of escalators until we eventually reached the top. We then headed through the shops and we stopped for a drink at the coffee shop. As we had our coffees, our 738 came in 52 minutes early, and it didn’t have winglets. I was sad, but I knew it wasn’t the only AEA aircraft I’d seen before (EC-III). We then headed through to passport control which was down another set of stairs. None of us set the metal detector off and so we proceeded through to the departure lounge. We found seats and I went into WH Smith to get a bottle of water and the latest edition of Airliner World. There was also an internet cafe and a Starbucks on this level. Very soon, we were called to gate 2 where there was a seating area. There was an Easyjet flight waiting to board whilst we were waiting. We were called forward for boarding before the Berlin passengers. We went down the stairs to the tarmac where we walked along to our aircraft, EC-HJQ. We boarded the aircraft via the stairs at the front of the aircraft. As we boarded, a Globespan 767 landed which was a huge surprise. I assumed it was on a training flight but I was still surprised to see it. We walked down to the aisle where our 4 seats were allocated. I sat by the 2 windows situated on row 13. I watched as the EZY 73G taxied into park next to us. I assume this was the Berlin flight. Soon, we were all on board and the doors were closed. As we pushed back, a new liveried FR 738 with winglets touched down. The safety video was shown as the engines were started up. We taxied off the apron and headed down to runway 27 for departure to TFS. We waited for an EZY 73G to land and then we taxied onto the runway and we commenced a rolling take off. We rotated level with the terminal and we headed out over the Mersey and the Wirral before turning south. The air-con conveniently decided to leak at this point, with drops of water falling onto my head! We quickly reached our cruise height of 37,000 feet. The crew came round with a bar service with snacks and drinks from which I got a tub of Pringles and another bottle of water. I must say at this point, the crew’s English on this and the inbound flight was impeccable, as was the captain’s English. About 1 hour into the flight, the meal came round which was some sort of chicken and vegetables. My dad can’t eat chicken, so the purser came and spoke to him and said he would give him a veggie meal if there were any left. Fortunately, there was 1 meal left, so that became my dad’s meal. Our meals were gorgeous and the purser was excellent in sorting out my dad’s problem. The crew then disappeared for the next 2 hours. There was no IFE at all, though I assume it was because all their IFE is in Spanish, and everyone on this flight was English. Another bar service came round about 1 hour before we commenced our descent into TFS. We were soon descending into Tenerife. We came from the North West of the island and we followed the coastline round to Los Cristianos where we were staying before turning out to sea and heading back in again. We got lower and lower before touching down and applying full reverse thrust. It’s fair to say it was rather loud! Due to strong headwinds, despite leaving LPL 23 minutes early, we were in TFS 2 minutes late. We taxied onto the apron and parked next to a LTE 320. The engines were shut down and as everyone got up, I looked across the apron and saw lots of TCX and TOM 757s and a couple of 767s for TOM as well as an Hola 757 and a Siberian 310. We disembarked and got onto a bus that took us to the terminal. We proceeded up the stairs to passport control and into arrivals. The good thing about arrivals in TFS is that you can still see movements on the tarmac, and I saw a TCY 747 land as we were waiting for our cases. They soon came through and we headed out to our coach which took us to our apartments for our week long holiday to come.

Part 2 to come later.

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