First Choice Airlines, Manchester to Rhodes (FCA2300) Wed 26th July 2006
Boeing B757-200, G-OOBA
Sched. Departure Time = 07:00
Actual Departure Time = 07:35
Sched. Arrival Time = 13:10
Actual Arrival Time = 13:30
Flight Time = 3 hours 55 minutes
I awoke Wednesday morning at 3am awaiting my annual holiday to Rhodes. The taxi driver (a woman lol!) arrived at 4am to take us to the airport and we arrived in at 4:40am. Check in was really really quick and we were given seats 24 A/B/C/D. We went though to the departure lounge and I went over to the window to see if I could see any planes taking-off or landing, however terminal 2 at Manchester is quite a way from the runway and I couldn’t really see anything plus there arent that many at 5am in the morning!
Shortly at about 6:30 we were called to gate 205 and we were in the last group to board. We sat in our seats and the captain came over and told us that ATC couldn’t give us a pushback time until 7:20, which all in all isn’t too bad.
7:20 came and we pushed back on time and made our way to runway 2 where we had to wait for a VLM Fokker 50, LOT Embraer 75?, Monarch A321 and another First Choice B757 to depart before we took off.
We took over into a big thick chunk of cloud which made the aircraft very very turbulent and a lot of people were doin there ‘woah’ noises lol!
Drinks service came round and by then some people were asleep so that went by quite quickly.
Then the meal service came round which was omelette (which was more like a soggy yorkshire pudding), with a tomate puree, a sausage and a couple of hash browns which wasnt the best meal I’ve ever had on an aircraft.
IFE was good it started with the film Ice Age 2 which I could only watch because I couldn’t be bothered to pay £2.50 for the headsets. Then there was a wait of about an hour after that until they played two & a half men followed by some programme about a monkey called Jungle Beat.
After a while the duty free came round and I bought a model aircraft B757 and the service seemed really popular.
After a while the captain announced that we were about to commence our descent into Rhodes and while he was announcing it a First Choice A320 flew about 2,000ft above us, which for some reason the woman next to my mate became scared. We did a rapid descent into Rhodes and arrived at 1:30pm local time about 20 minutes late but that didn’t really matter. On the ground I saw an Excel Airways B757 (with a Finnair tail?), MyTravel A320, Thomson B757 and SAS MD-83.
My return flight will be on a different thread, hope you enjoyed it (my first 1!)
By: Lt Kije - 19th August 2006 at 10:57
… G-OOBA departed for LGW and G-CPEV departed for MAN, is this usual?
Yep, usually to get aircraft correctly positioned for either the next flight or some maintainence. Our B757’s are rated for different MTOW, so only those with the heavier weights may do the longer short-hauls, e.g flights to Egypt or The Gambia where a ‘bus just won’t do.
Lt Kije – yes it was Shaun, how did u know lol?! Both ways the captains reported 3 times, once before departure, once when at cruising altitude and once again shortly before descent.
I know these things…. 🙂 Oh, inbound was Capt Pete Thomas if you’re interested.
By: ab8652 - 15th August 2006 at 21:26
First Choice Airlines, Rhodes to Manchester (FCA2301) Wed 9th Aug 2006
Boeing B757-200, G-CPEV
Sched. Departure Time = 14:10
Actual Departure Time = 14:30
Sched. Arrival Time = 16:40
Actual Arrival Time = 16:35
Flight Time = 4 hours 5 minutes
We boarded the coach at 10:15am from our apartments and made the 1 hour journey through to Rhodes Airport and arrived some 3 hours before our flight was due to depart. The rep told us that check-in wasn’t to open for another hour and that we had to stand in the heat outside until check-in was open, so why didn’t they pick us up from the hotel an hour later (so i could have had a lie-in lol!)
Luckily we were at the front of the queue and were able to scan our bags and check-in first and we were allocated 3 C/D/E/F. We headed straight for the departure lounge and waited for our flight to be called. At 12:50 G-OOBA arrived from MAN (as the woman announced) and a few minutes later G-CPEV arrived from LGW (again as the woman announced) however for the return journey G-OOBA departed for LGW and G-CPEV departed for MAN, is this usual?
Anyway it was a typical English day at Rhodes because apart from the 2 B757-200 FCA’s there were 3 MyTravel A320s, 1 Excel B737-800, 1 Excel B757-200 (again with the Finnair tail), 1 Astraeus B737-300, 1 Monarch A300, 1 Thomas Cook B757-200, 1 Thomson B767-200 and 1 MyTravel B757-200.
We boarded the flight and sat in our seats and had to wait a while for the luggage to be loaded which wasn’t that long and we took off 20 minutes behind schedule. When we took off the air conditioning unit started spraying water all over the man in the row in front of us and the air stewardess had to throw paper towels to him because she couldn’t get out of her seat yet.
Shortly the drinks service came round and the IFE was turned on which was Eight Below which I’d never heard of.
The meal came round which was a whole lot better than the meal on the outbound flight. This consisted of Cottage Pie with peas and carrots followed by sponge pudding. Not the best I’ve ever tasted on a flight but better than the breakfast!
The film ended and two & a half men and Jungle Beat, the exact same shows as outbound were put on so at this point I was getting quite bored.
Soon the duty free came round and again this seemed quite popular and my mate bought some perfume because she wanted to get rid of her money for some reason lol!
Before long we started our descent into Manchester over Skegness, and it became very turbulent over the moors between Leeds and Manchester because it was raining and the famous ‘woah’ noises started again and we landed 5 minutes earlier than scheduled at 4:35pm and taxiied straight to Gate 215 at Terminal 2 between 2 Thomson B767-300s.
Lt Kije – yes it was Shaun, how did u know lol?! Both ways the captains reported 3 times, once before departure, once when at cruising altitude and once again shortly before descent.
By: Lt Kije - 14th August 2006 at 00:05
I see your flight was flown by Captain Shaun Errington – did you get much in the way of info from the cockpit?
Liked the stories of the ‘oohs’ from the pax! They always get a wry grin from me…. 😉
By: A330-200 - 12th August 2006 at 14:06
with pics tom??
By: tomfellows - 12th August 2006 at 13:10
Oh so you had that rubbis Ice Age 2 as well. I was so disappointed when they announced that on my flight last week. My meal was quite nice though, but I’ll write a proper trip report when I return
Nice report:)
By: A330-200 - 10th August 2006 at 21:05
cool
By: ab8652 - 10th August 2006 at 15:23
sorry digi cam broke days before i was due to go, so had to settle with a disposable lol! flight was pretty full, only a few spare seats near the back
By: lukeylad - 10th August 2006 at 13:35
nice report there mate welcome to the forums strap in!!
By: A330-200 - 10th August 2006 at 13:25
no pucs 🙁
good reportb though how full was the flight?
its preety busy at 5.30
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August 10, 2006 at 1:03 pm