LEEDS – BRISTOL – DUBLIN – LEEDS (No Pics)

This is my first report so sorry if it is not as good as others. As it says no pics and that is because my computer does not like to upload them. LBArules may add them later.

On Thursday 1st June me and fellow forum member LBArules went on our round trip. Our first flight was with Air Southwest. We checked in on time and went through to departures at Leeds. Tom found a great place to sit with the view of the jet2.com 757. We wondered around but did not find a better spot… Boarding came and we got on the aircraft, it was my first time on a Dash 8 and I was very nervous, out of a possible 50 seats there was only 15 of us onboard. The two crew members were very friendly and talkative and caring. We departed with a very light aircraft, the crew did a short quick service and then decided to have a seat themselves and eat their lunch. I pulled out my nuts magazine and in no time we were ready for the landing. I was very shocked with the speed that we travelled. The landing at Bristol was very smooth and quick with the added bonus of a peek into the flight deck for a quick piccy :p) I must say I like Bristol airport and was completely different to what I had thought. We got to the doors and thought “hmmm which way to go?” so I suggested go round to the threshold and I thought it was a very good place to get some photos. We spent about four hours there, and only one small talk to the police who had reports from a bus driver that we had been trespassing, (don’t worry we hadn’t were good boys:)).

Next we moved on to Dublin and that we flew with Aer Lingus and me personally that is one of, if not the best airline I have ever travelled with. The A320 was equipped with friendly staff and tidyish. The seats were Leather and had the small head cushions that bend around your head. Yet again the aircraft was half empty so we could spread out. Again it was a smooth flight and the landing was a little bumpy. On disembarkation we again got into the flight deck where we had a small talk to the pilot and he even let us sit in his seat with our pics taken (Thanks) 🙂

Dublin airport was very busy so Tom took me straight out to his viewing point that was situated right on the other side of the airfield. The viewing point came with its own 30 minute walk out in the boiling sun. We saw many Ryanair’s, Aer Lingus (as your probably not surprised) one Iberia 🙂 and a First Choice. After about 2 hours the heat got to us so we headed back to the terminal where we had already checked in with Ryanair on the internet. I went through ok whereas Tom had trouble so he had to back to the check-in desks where he could queue jump. We did a bit of the looking around the shops and then went to our gate. A66 was our gate and in order to get there we had to walk through a number of “porta cabins” which were new and we waited. We got a boring older 737-800 with no special design and no winglets. We had the priority seating and both sat in the windows so we could follow the sunset home :). It was a very packed aircraft with a number of foreign crew members and no “fit” ones to my disappointment: p. I was surprised again by the speed of the flights (my fisrt time on a city hop). I enjoyed the spotting of locations coming in to Leeds especially my street. The landing at LBA was not the best ever, the pilot seemed to be gliding over it and when he finally had contact he was keen on the breaks. We finally got to the gate and boarded the bus; I was surprised that they did not check our passports in the arrivals.

That is the end of the report, I hope you liked it, sorry about no pics.