FLIGHT 3
FR9847
Ryanair
Dublin – Cork
Ei-DCT

Scheduled Dep. Time – 1755
Actual Dep. Tim – 1805
Scheduled Arr. Time – 1845
Actual Arr. Time – 1840

We boarded at gate A1 and our plane arrived shortly after an Aer Arran ATR42 to Sligo had departed. Then, the rush for boarding started – we got ourselves towards the front of the priority queue. Boarding then started and we stepped out of the lovely warm terminal to the horribly chilly outside, where EI-DCT was refuelling as EI-DAO was arriving from Luton. I took 8A, just in front of the engine. I was quite surprised at how busy the flight was – 140 passengers is way more than I thought that there would be.

In true Ryanair fashion we taxied fast to Rwy 28 again where we jumped the queue ahead of an Aer Lingus A321 and began the take off. Immediately we entered cloud and turbulence, which was with us all the flight meaning the captain kept on the seatbelt sign. It was pouring it down outside, with visibillity very poor – i could only just see the strobe flashing on the wing.

The weather was very similar in Cork, except gale force winds and driving rain, which greeted us when we got off. It was a great landing in the wind – didn’t even feel us come down onto Rwy 17. We parked up in front of a delayed Aer Lingus A320 friom Paris and went through passport control and straight to the easyJet check in desk for EZY788 to LGW.

FLIGHT 4
EZY788
easyJet
Cork-Gatwick
G-EZMS

Scheduled Dep. Time – 2045
Actual Dep. Tim – 2105
Scheduled Arr. Time – 2205
Actual Arr. Time – 2155

Cork departure lounge is absolutely awful – although the new terminal will probably be much better. There was nothing to do apart from visit the shop and listen to Eastenders which was being shown on a TV somewhere. The Aer Lingus Heathrow flight was delayed by 10 minutes and our A319 landed just behind schedule at 2030. Boarding started at Gate 3 10 minutes later and we had to walk in the rain to the plane, which was G-EZMS, a fairly new one. I took 22F. There were 100 passengers on board and we settled down at the end of a long day. The captain came on and told us the route, that we’d be heading east after departure and heading towards Swansea, and just south of Oxford before coming south of Gatwick before turning 180 degrees to land on 26L.

We used Runway 17 again and the wind was from more of a crosswind direction than earlier, as a lot of rudder was used on the runway to keep us straight. In general, the flight was bumpy and the seatbelt sign was on for most of it, with the cabin crew refusing to serve hot drinks, which I suppose is sensible.

The descent started about 20 minutes before landing and we arrived back at LGW. Unfortunately we had to park at a remote stand (Stand 141) next to the Thomsonfly 737, because it seemed like we had a technical problem as a few engineers were inspecting an engine. We took the coach to the terminal and after handing back our boarding passes at customs, we went home.

Overall:
Jet2 – 9/10
Aer Lingus – 9/10
Ryanair – 9/’10
easyJet – 8/10

Thanks,

Tom