I left Oxford at 8AM this morning for my flight to Dublin that departed at 3PM! I’d booked a day away to try and take some time off and forget about the final stage of the OAT selection process which I face on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
Despite reports of security issues the night before the situation had been well handled and by the time I arrived at Gatwick at 10AM everything was running as normal.
I made my way up to the Skyview and managed to blag myself a student discount on the entrance fee with an out of date ISIC card :). I spent about 2 hours up there taking photos and looking around the gift shop. I then went and had a meal before checking in for my Ryanair flight (FR1123) to Dublin.
Check in was chaos, it seemed the baggage belts were going wrong everywhere, Virgin had already had problems in Zone A earlier on in the day and now it was zone D’s turn, which just so happens to be where Ryanair check in. Quite ironically check in was moved to Zone H, easyJet’s dedicated zone! The desk was surrounded by Orange while one solitary Ryanair sign sat in the middle being mocked :). I was unimpressed to say the least, it may well have been Servisair’s fault but only two desks were available for a full flight of over 160 people, further more the desks didn’t open until 1 hour 45 minutes before departure.
After finally checking in I went round the shops and then embarked on my normal exercise of seeing how much exploring I can get away with without getting told off…to my amazement I managed to get all the way to the Satellite gates and back! 🙂
The flight was assigned gate 107 which is in Pier one….possibly the darkest and scruffiest part of the airport. Boarding was the normal scrum as people ran to get the best seats (is it really that hard to assign seats?). The aircraft was one of the older 737-800s and was fitted out in the old Ryanair interior.
We taxied to 08R before commencing our take off roll. The climb out was very bumpy but I assured the nervous stag party that were sitting around me that this was just due to thermals (I think!) and that it was nothing to worry about, they seemed somewhat unconvinced until I explained that I’m (hopefully!) about to resume my ATPL training, at which point they went the other way and decided that if anything went wrong I would take over :P.
The flight it’s self was uneventful, I brought a tiny can of coke for a huge £1 and chatted with the stag party.
Now…I’m not a nervous flyer at all and I tend not to exaggerate, but the landing in Dublin was the worst I have ever experienced. The first officer carried it out. I mentioned earlier that I thought we were going a bit fast but I naturally imagined we would slow down before we hit the runway…..I was very very wrong! Instead were lurched from side to side as the FO attempted to line us up on the centre line before landing, then at about 300ft we pitched forward whilst continuing to lurch from side to side, I didn’t realise how low we were until suddenly BANG we hit the runway flat out…no flare, we just belly flopped, as a result the plane bounced high back into the air at which point the FO for some reason increased the throttle (I thought we were going to go around) but instead we literally slammed back onto the runway before braking incredible hard and then leaving the runway at great speed. At this point the best man from the stag party decided that he was going to get up and shout about how bad the landing was before saying that he was sitting next to a young pilot who could’ve done it better 🙂 (I like that bit :D).
Anyway, I recovered enough to go and take some more photos inside the airport and grab a bite to eat.
The flight back (FR118) was much less eventful. The aircraft (Again a 737-800) was the youngest in the fleet and was painted up in the new Ryanair livery and also had the new interior with leather seats. This flight was very pleasant, incidentally the first officer was called Martin (Must be a sign!!!)! The flight back took 55 minutes and provided to the opportunity to watch a great sunset.
I had a great day, however my illusions of Ryanair have been shattered, their take on customer service seems to be, well, non existent.
By: Mark L - 18th September 2003 at 11:22
Thanks EGNM. “for the moment” indeed!
By: EGNM - 18th September 2003 at 11:02
ah sorry i see what you mean, yepo its the only BA Charter that regularly operates, and then there is the LPL-IOM run which they are running – for the moment!
By: Mark L - 17th September 2003 at 18:16
Sorry, you got the wrong end of the stick there EGNM! The only BA charter was what I meant!
By: EGNM - 17th September 2003 at 15:15
No No far from it!
BAL Based B752
MYT Based A320 Suplimented by
JKK MD83 (at least 3x weekly)
JKK A321
BHA TU54
MYT A321
IBW A320 (Approx 3x Weekly)
Thats off the top of my head!
By: Mark L - 17th September 2003 at 14:48
Wow, never knew that. So the charters from LPL just run to Jersey then?
By: EGNM - 17th September 2003 at 11:31
was the Jersey old folks charter – Leeds gets a BA Dash 8 as well as approx 7 E145 flights on a Sat!
By: Mark L - 17th September 2003 at 10:55
Where was G-EMBR from EGNM? Was it standby from IOM?
By: EGNM - 17th September 2003 at 00:54
Originally posted by wannabe pilot
But there’s not much to be seen at airports like Charleroi and Liverpool is there? Do you know of anywhere at Dublin where you can see the planes other than from the airside, because if I was intending to spend the whole day there then I obviously couldn’t wait until 2 hours before departure until I could get through to take some photos?
not much eh!
Sat from LPL (i work their)
EC-IJU
G-SSWR
G-EMBR
G-NIKO
G-EZYB
G-EZJS
EI-CKR
EC-HZH
LZ-HMN
EC-GVO
EI-CSZ
The above are what i log when something “differant” comes in –
G-BGMN
G-ORCP
G-SOEI
G-OPFW – Were the Emerald 748s d/s
Then there are 6 EZY B733s based, PH-RAR/T B1900s which run through (AT had an emerg landing on Sat), PH-RAQ ATR-42.
Those were just what passed the offivce windows!
I would check timetables though Martin as the EZYs usually come in at once from the Morining rotations together, then all go together and soforth for the rest of the day.
By: Thomas Cook - 16th September 2003 at 21:24
Hi,
Its all to do with a new bussiness strategy or something.
Thanks
Thomas Cook
By: dan777 - 16th September 2003 at 21:18
Leather seats on Ryanair hey!!! 😀 It doesnt surprise me that a low cost airline has leather seats but Im shocked cheapy Ryanair has them now especially seeing as they try to cut costs on just about everything!
Regards
dan777
By: Thomas Cook - 15th September 2003 at 11:08
Hi,
Liverpool is quite interesting, although it’s a bit awkward as goes viewing
Liverpool is a nice, modern, little airport. As you mentioned though viewing can be awkward. The only place to get a good view across the apron and part of the runway is to go to cafe before departures, but I’m sure security will move you on eventually if your not a passenger.
Do you know of anywhere at Dublin where you can see the planes other than from the airside
There is a grass mound by the road side opposite to Runway 28 that most of the “spotters” seem to go to because you can get good views of departures and arrivals from here.
Thanks
Thomas Cook
By: Nationwide Air - 14th September 2003 at 21:28
Hi,
Great report, your landing in DUB must have been exiting!
Nationwide Air 😀
By: Thomas Cook - 14th September 2003 at 20:19
Hi,
Good review, I’ve flown with Ryanair four times now from MAN-DUB and have found them to be quite good.
their take on customer service seems to be, well, non existent.
Apparently they only have four people working in the customer service department!
Thanks
Thomas Cook
By: Mark L - 14th September 2003 at 12:44
Liverpool is quite interesting, although it’s a bit awkward as goes viewing, and the security is abnormally tight all round the airport.
By: martin_EGTK - 14th September 2003 at 12:23
I think there is certainly a lot to see at Liverpool, but as you say Charleroi is likely to be quite dull, but I’ll wait and see. Like I said I’m afraid I didn’t get a chance to go and see if there was anywhere better to go and watch the aircraft, sorry about that.
By: steve rowell - 14th September 2003 at 11:33
Is there such a thing as an old 737-800,nice report
By: wannabe pilot - 14th September 2003 at 00:39
But there’s not much to be seen at airports like Charleroi and Liverpool is there? Do you know of anywhere at Dublin where you can see the planes other than from the airside, because if I was intending to spend the whole day there then I obviously couldn’t wait until 2 hours before departure until I could get through to take some photos?
By: martin_EGTK - 14th September 2003 at 00:32
I had to go and check in again, but, yes the photos were taken after I had passed through security for my flight back. I first visited in June when I flew Stansted-Blackpool-Dublin-Stansted, I’d really recommend it, it’s a great airport!
I’m going to be doing Stansted-Brussels (South!)-Liverpool-Dublin-Stansted next month which should make for a very interesting (and long!) day!
By: wannabe pilot - 14th September 2003 at 00:28
A good report there, I am thinking of taking a trip over to Dublin from Stansted sometime soon, whilst they are offering it for ‘free’ (the ticket is actually 1p but they somehow manage to add about £10 tax on to it each way). You mentioned in you other post about the photos being taken airside, so did you just get off the plane and not bother going through security, or were the photos taken after you had checked in for the flight home?
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September 14, 2003 at 12:21 am