I did look at that option but the times were just too inconvenient & the price was high. I’d have left saturday morning & arrived in MAN saturday lunchtime & then had to leave about midday on the sunday to get back to MAD or BCN in time for the last EAS flights. It just wouldn’t have been worth going for that length of time

Hand has basically answered all your questions. The problem with this area is that there are a few airports (Biarritz, San Sebastian/Hondarribia (which I can see from my bedroom window!) or Bilbao) but they are all pretty expensive to fly into/out of. The only airline to fly in to EAS (San Sebastian) is Iberia so I would have had to have gone via MAD or BCN. From BIO (Bilbao) I could have taken LH via FRA or SN via BRU but this would have cost more than AF for this particular weekend. BIO does have some low costs with EZY going to STN, LGW and BRS and also Hapag Lloyd Express to CGN, HAJ and STR and Volareweb to Milan and Rome. None of these were really an option as I needed to be in manchester as quick as possible & for the longest time possible.

I’m flying from BIO-BRS on EZY a week friday so I’ll try & get you another trip report then.

And by the way, the roof did not fall on me! 😀

Just as a side note, Iberia’s prices from EAS are coming down slowly and so I am doing some flights from there before I leave Irun at the end of August.

Thanks BY767. AF were fantastic. I cannot speak highly enough of them. Something I forgot to mention in my report was that all 4 aircraft were clean both inside and out!!! Miracle eh?

I know I was incredibly lucky to get in the cockpit during the flight. I never thought I’d be able to do this again. As I said, the captain was so nice that I’m sure if he hadn’t had other people in the jumpseats, he’d have invited me to stay in for the landing. I’ll just have to fly AF again now to see if I get that 😉 . I can’t even say it’s because I know someone. I simply asked at the beginning of the flight expecting to be told I could look in on the ground either in BIQ or CDG. It was a fantastic surprise.