I look forward to flying an aircraft that in the event of an engine failure will fly you up to safety with no pilot input rather than one that will fly you into the ground! Seriously I will miss many things about the Boeing however the Airbus just seems so much more refined.

Having spoken to many pilots in TCX, those who have only flown Boeing only want to fly Boeing while those who have flown bot Boeing and Airbus mostly chose Airbus. It’s amazing how many people who have never flown an Airbus offer opinions as if they have!

A quick update…after doing my ‘last flight’ on Sunday the Thomas Cook crewing department changed my final office day (where I’m supposed to hand my manuals and uniform back) on Monday into a standby as they are so short of crew. I was on standby from 1100 to 1700z. At 1200 crewing called me and told me I had to do a night Bodrum (south west Turkey) reporting at 1805z!!! I legally went out of hours at 0415, which happened to be exactly the time the flight was due to land back at Gatwick! I could exercise 2 hours of discretion and legally continue until 0615 but I told them I was not prepared to do this and would dump the aircraft in Paris if it ran just one minute late. I have taken a lot of cr*p over the last 3 months but this was just taking the pi55. Eventually they conceded that their request was unreasonable and we settled on me going to Palma instead, getting back home at 0100 this morning. It is a shame that my time on the 757 has ended up on a sour note however it has been a great 4 years with over a couple of thousand hours on the Boeing. I went back to LGW this morning and gave my uniform back before going to VS and collecting my new uniform and Airbus manuals. After that I went to the Virgin Flight Centre and had coffee with a great bunch of old friends who were as delighted to see me as I was to see them.

G-VMIA was originally named Miami Maiden before it was renamed Spirit of Sir Freddie.

They’ve finally finished the ILS installation to the westerly runway and still use the VOR approach to the easterly. The local topography occasionally causes localised fog but generally it’s a nice easy place to fly into. The baggage services leave a lot to be desired however and frequently cause us delays getting out on time.

In winter the Trislanders routinely plough their way between Alderney and Southampton at 1000′ to avoid icing!