Flight Report – LBA-IOM-LBA Eastern

As our learned colleague LBA Rules has just pointed out, I am yet to write a trip report for my Isle of Man flight back in March. So in order not to disappoint, here are a few words, which I hope you’ll find useful.

This was my first time flying with Eastern. I was on one of the last BA Citi-express flights to the Isle of Man in 2003 from Leeds Bradford, so it was always going to be interesting to see the differences between BA and T3.

I left on the morning flight, which departed on time. The aircraft (G-MAJM) looked bright and cheery against a snowy background on that March morning. I always find flying a turbo-prop a little more tense than flying a ‘jet’ aircraft and I’m always equally surprised when the flying experience is barely different. Inside, MAJM looked old and tatty; those old grey leather seats now need replacing. The cabin attendant was pleasant and rushed to serve us a packet of biscuits and a glass of orange juice before we started to descend over the Rock. Now, anyone who has flew into the IOM will tell you that it’s often quite a bumpy approach as its usually windy. This day was no exception, but to be honest the landing, though a little bouncy, was nothing out of the ordinary.

The following morning I returned to Ronaldsway for the flight home. The weather was poor and a gale force wind was blowing. The thought of taking off in a little J41 wasn’t in the least bit appealing. I think the aircraft coming back was MAJF and I remember walking across the tarmac to the shoddy bus struggling to stay upright given the wind strength. As I boarded, the inside of the aircraft looked equally tatty. The captain warned us of a bumpy ascent but said things would smooth out eventually. We taxied to the end of the runway and held ready for take off. Ten minutes later, we were still there. After a short while the captain told us that a warning light had come on and he was going to have to check the Manuals as he didn’t know what it meant! We taxied back to the terminal and an engineer boarded.

After about half an hour, we tried again after being told that the warning light only referred to the automated air conditioning unit (or something) and that the captain would control the temperature manually instead. We took off about an hour late in the end and strangely, felt nothing in the way of bumps despite the wind. The flight, service and landing were thankfully uneventful and my short business trip was over.

All in all, I had no problems with Eastern Airways; though they could do with tidying up the insides of the J41s!

Sorry for the sketchiness of the report; hope some find it interesting.