Views as we came towards East Midlands.
It was quite clear on approach, and certainly calmer than the ferocious crosswinds we had last year.
We touched down at 17:12 and taxied to the terminal, where a bus was waiting to take us to the arrivals area. We were through passport control very quick and our luggage was waiting for us when we reached the baggage reclaim area.
We caught the bus into Derby and then the train to Leeds, another horrible East Midlands Trains experience – paying for first class and enduring a carriage with messy tables, drinks in cardboard cups with wooden stirrers – an absolutely crap train company if ever there was one!
The flight was great, and so was the holiday, but in December we are sailing to Belgium and I don’t know when my next flights will be.
We had a wing view, and another interesting bagging:
This unusually-coloured aircraft, obviously not a BMI regular, was operating the flight to Leeds Bradford.
The Captain welcomed passengers aboard. She was called Hazel and the other pilot was called James. I thought it was great – a woman flying the plane while a man served the food and drinks! She said that we would be flying at 27,000 feet and the flight would last about fifty minutes.
We pushed back at 17:09 and taxied to runway 25R (?). We took off and 17:18.
The aircraft climbed smoothly at first.
View just after take off. There was not too much cloud at this point.
As we climbed higher we hit some turbulence, and flew into clouds.
Going into the cloud.
As we flew through the cloud, we had quite a bit of turbulence. However, soon we were above the clouds.
Above the clouds.
The crew started serving the inflight snack. Normally I would avoid BMI sandwiches like the plague, but we didn’t know what time we would eat again so I attempted a beef and salad sandwich.
The beef and salad sandwich.
The sandwich was soggy and doughy lumps stuck to my fingers. I ate half of it and by then I had had enough!
There was a choice of the beef, cheese (avoid at all cost on BMI), ham or egg.
Soon after the meal we started our descent into East Midlands.
Clouds with land visible.
Another aircraft – quite a bit higher than we were!
Soon we approached the Continent and broken cloud.
But as we flew over Belgium the cloud really thickened.
We were descending fast, and soon below the cloud we caught our first glimpse of Belgium in 2008.
Thankfully it was not raining, and we touched down on 25L at 16:19 and taxied to the terminal.
Our luggage was waiting for us when we reached the arrivals area, we have always found BRU to be very efficient.
We had some nachos and Stella in Brussels Cafe and then caught the train to Oostende via Brussels Noord.
It was a good flight and it was great to be back in Belgium again.
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