Glad you enjoyed the report, AO. I’m off to Manchester with AB again tomorrow (hope I make it without too many problems due to the fog) and then back to Düsseldorf from STN with them on Monday (Christmas day). If I have time, I’ll post my thoughts on these three flights in the New Year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!

Thanks for all the replies so far guys.

A330-200: The outbound flight had 231 passngers on board out of 233 available seats according to the crew manfiest I saw in the galley. I’m not sure about the figures for the return flight but it appeared completely full as you would guess for a charter in the summer holidays.

6/8/2006 RHO-MAN FJE871 Boeing 757-200 G-FJEB

We arrived at Rhodes airport at around 03:15 for an 06:10 departure. As usual in Rhodes, check in was only due to be open two hours prior to departure so we had some time to wait. It was boiling inside the terminal as is standard. Eventually, check in opened at around 03:55 and we were at the front of the queue before all the tour operators noticed the desk numbers and sent busloads of people over there. We had our hold luggage x-rayed and proceeded to the check in desk. The agent had a piece of paper with our names on it saying what seats we were allocated. Well done Flyjet! I never expected that to happen. Anyway, our bags were tagged and the agent actually took notice of the weights! First time in 13 years!!!

After receiving our hi-tech boarding passes (a bit of paper with a flight number and seat number on), we went outside for a while longer as the departure lounge in RHO is normally boiling hot and very crowded. About an hour before the flight, we went through into the new extra-Schengen departure lounge that has been under construction for the last 6 years (the builder went bust so it has taken ages). This was much bigger and cooler than the old departure lounge with quite a nice travel value shop and a pleasant looking cafe. Our aircraft arrived soon afterwards and I was delighted to see that it was G-FJEB. This meant I would have flown on 2/3 of Flyjet’s fleet in just a fortnight!!

Boarding started from gate 11 around 30 minutes prior to departure and was the usual bedlam so we just sat around the gate area until most passengers were on board and then went over leisurely. We were among the last passengers to board so there was little overhead space for our very heavy hand luggage. We eventually found space and settled into our seats. As mentioned before, on G-FJEB, the seats on the ABC side seem to have more legroom than the DEF side but it is the opposite way around on G-FJEA. Very strange!

I took seat 2A as I wanted to see our hotel on climb out and the A seat is the only way to do this. The doors were closed quite quickly and we pulled off our stand bang on time. We taxied to the Westerly runway (I still can’t remeber if it’s 28) and did another rolling takeoff. We climbed powerfully over Tholos and turned right over the Aegean sea.

Service commenced soon afterwards and entailed headsets followed by a bar service followed by breakfast and tea or coffee. The purser on this flight was the same as the outbound so although the crew were different, the service was quite similar: rush it out so we can spend 2 1/2 hours closed in the galley chatting! This was quite annoying as it was a daylight flight and many more people were awake. Also, we heard little from the cockpit on this flight and so I don’t really know what the route was.

The IFE was working on this flight and the main film was Shaggy Dog with Tim Allen. It was your usual Disney film but was quite funny and well suited to the summer charter audience. After this, there was an episode of the Simpsons (I forget which one) and some other TV stuff that I didn’t watch. The IFE was adequate for this type of flight. There were plenty of TV’s in the aisle which was fine.

After around 3 1/2 hours flying, we began our descent towards Manchester. We could see a large city to our left for quite a while on the approach which I can only assume was Birmingham. We approached MAN over the Peek District before joining the ILS for 24R. We overflew Stockport, Cheadle and Heald Green before making a very smooth touchdown well ahead of schedule. The braking wasn’t too harsh this time and we turned off the runway by the viewing park. We taxied to stand 2 and were on blocks a full 40 minutes early. The airbridge operator struggled to connect the airbridge to the aircraft but eventually, he connected it to door 2L and we disembarked. Passport control was quick and efficient and all 9 pieces of luggage arrived quickly and intact.

We made our way quickly to the station for the 09:20 bus to Wilmslow where we would connect to a train to Crewe and then another back to Swansea. Everything worked out well and that was the end of our holiday.

So, to sum up Flyjet. They were excellent from the organisation point of view. Both flights were on time, the aircraft was cleaned and fully catered and we got the seats we had reserved both ways which was fantastic. The cabin crew were the biggest let down and I e-mailed Flyjet with these observations. They are currently investigating it and will send me a full reply in the post. You can’t ask for more than that. I will definitely fly with them again as I think they are a great little airline that deserves to do well!