FCA – RHO-MAN

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.