The flight times for the return leg back to London were not as sociable as the outbound trip, a 0740 departure meant being at the airport for 0540, leaving our hotel at 0430, having to get up at about 0345. As it was the last night of our trip we all decided that sleep was a bad idea and stayed up until it was time to leave. Consequently I am writing this at 1700 on Saturday having been up since 0800 on Friday :rolleyes:
Anyway after checking in and getting a right hand block of seats for my mates and I from a very helpful lady on check in we proceeded through security and into the airside area, which was rather smaller than I was anticipating. The time soon passed, and as the sun came up I moved round the corner to the gate area, and watched a Syrian A320 arrive from Damascus. There are no gates by the terminal at Larnaca, and all passengers are bussed to a large area of remote stands. At about 0700 ZU400 was called, and I was one of the first people onto the aircraft, taking my seat in 20F. Sadly the window was very dirty which made picture taking that bit difficult.
Everyone was on the aircraft in time, however we departed exactly on 0740. Take off roll was very long again, however our angle of attack was strangely higher than I noticed it before. Both flights were completely full, and LCA-LTN is longer than LTN-PFO so I’m not sure quite why that was. Again the climb was perfectly normal, with the sky conditions very clear.
This time the food came round the other way, with a hot english breakfast being given out very shortly after departure, with pretzels given out nearer top of descent. This time the flight was all in daylight and we were able to enjoy the scenery provided by the Turkish and Greek coastlines and mountain ranges, however shortly after Rhodes the cloud came about, and we saw little else apart from a lot of snow over Bulgaria.
The IFE was similarly disinteresting although a Vicar of Dibley rerun always breaks the monotony. The flight from LCA was 5hrs15min as opposed to 3hrs55min to PFO, and the extra hour and 20 was very much noticeable, exacerbated of course by lack of sleep. Where there was no scenery to keep me occupied there was a small amount of traffic keeping us company, and I noticed a THY 738, and a LH 744 at various stages. In the last hour of flying we flew alongside an FR 738, and watched him all the way onto final approach into STN.
The weather in London this morning was not very nice, with lots of cloud around providing for some very turbulent conditions in our descent. Winds were gusting up to 35 knots as well, and the crew were kept very busy trying to get us down. Several large power bursts convinced me we were going to go around, but after two very very late rolls to the right and then left, the right side smacked down accompanied by full reverse in order to make the first exit! Taxi to the gate was quick again, and we disembarked fairly rapidly, although I gather the front steps took about 5 minutes later to arrive than the rear ones.
Overall Helios were a very good airline, and their cabin product was very very good, far better than any I have experienced on BA, although to be fair the flight was consdierably longer than any I have done before. The extensive delay we experienced on Tuesday did create a negative impression in most peoples eyes who I was travelling with, despite the fact that in this case it appeared to be a completely unavoidable incident. Discounting the weather factor that seemed to have caused much of the upset to the flights, I could quite conceivably argue Helios to be the best airline I have ever flown on. Pictures to follow shortly I hope!
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