The following trip report is quite long, describing a 10-day trip around the Old Continent. It includes ten airports (BKK, DOH, MAN, LTN, SAW, BSL, ZRH, VIE, AMS and EMA), nine flights and five airlines (Qatar, easyJet, Niki, KLM cityhopper and bmibaby). I hope you enjoy reading it and feel free to comment or ask anything.
I was picked up at 04.30 am on Friday 6 July for the drive to Suvarnabhumi Airport, where I arrived around 06.00 am after a tranquil drive. Despite being quite early, the check-in area for the Qatar Airways flight to Doha was packed with people. It took quite a while to get the boarding pass, and after that I headed to immigration, which also took long to get through. Anyway, boarding was at gate D2; the flight’s arrival was delayed about 30 minutes because of… late arrival of the aircraft. Once all was ready, the gate agents tried to organise the boarding process and board the plane in sequence – business class pax first, followed by the last rows of economy, but everyone seemed to want to get on that plane as soon as possible so all attempts made by them were futile.
Friday 6 July, BKK-DOH
Qatar Airways flight QR613
Airbus A330-300 A7-AEC
STD 0830, STA 1130
ATD 0920, ATA 1130
I settled in my seat, 34K, which offered sufficient legroom and a nice personal TV. The headsets that were handed out were not so nice though (earplugs instead of shells) and as the socket is on the inner side of the armrest, sometime during the flight I accidentally broke it when shifting forward in my seat… The cabin crew came around with newspapers, hot towels and candy before take-off.
The food served during the flight was excellent. The choice for breakfast was:
1) Omelette filled with cheddar grilled herb chicken, creamed spinach, cherry tomato and roasted potatoes.
2) Scrambled eggs and thyme with gratin tomato, ratatouille and hashbrown potato.
3) Stir fried chicken and vegetables on soba noodles.
These three choices were complemented with orange juice, fruit yoghurt, seasonal fresh fruit, a bread roll, butter and preserve and a croissant, and tea or coffee.
At a later stage, about 1.5 hour before landing, we were served a snack which consisted of a sandwich and a drink.
The cabin crew on this flight seemed to be mainly of Thai and Philippine origin. Qatar Airways prides itself on being one of three (or four, I am not sure) five-star airlines, and while most aspects of the service are really very good, I didn’t think that this particular flight was that much better than say Singapore Airlines or Emirates. I suppose it also depends on many factors; in this case I would have said that the cabin crew wasn’t having a very good day and lacking fundamental requirements for passenger service, such as looking at someone when you speak to them or hand them something over. Surprising really, as normally Thais are known to be very service-minded.
Friday 6 July, DOH-MAN
Qatar Airways flight QR43
Airbus A330-300 A7-AED (Asian Games 2006 yellow livery)
STD 1230, STA 1800
ATD 1245, ATA 1800
We landed in Doha, were taken by bus to the terminal and basically went straight through the security check, into the transfer lounge and directly to the gate for boarding the next flight, followed by another bus ride. The plane this time was an A330 painted in the yellow 15th Asian Games 2006 livery. We left more or less on time and turned left after take-off; the routing took us skimming the southern border of Iraq, through Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany and Holland before crossing the North Sea towards Manchester. The approach into MAN was a bit bumpy, followed by a good landing on Rwy 24R.
The menu on this flight:
- Appetizer: Spiced chicken with Thai dressing on oriental bean sprouts salad
- 1) Mexican chicken served with sautéed carrots, zucchini and mashed potato
- 2) Pan fried dory fish in sweet and sour sauce, accompanied with braised pakchoy, buttered carrots and steamed basmati rice
- 3) Cottage cheese cooked in makhni gravy served with a ragout of okra curry and vegetable basmati rice
- Dessert: White silk cappuccino cake
- Accompanied by a bread roll, cheese and butter and biscuits, and chocolate
Immigration at Manchester was a bit chaotic and it took a long time to get the bags. I then made my way to the car park opposite Terminal 2, to get the rental car from Hertz, but the office was closed. After reaching them eventually by means of the courtesy phone, they said I had to make my way to T1, which is quite a walk. But hey, that’s the best way to get the blood circulation going again after a seven-hour flight, isn’t it?
Getting the car took ages, but at least I got an upgrade from a Ford Ka to a Fiat Punto.
I then made my way to the Derby area for the first night.
After a day in the Derby area, I drove back to Manchester and spent the Sunday morning spotting at Manchester Airport which, in contrary to the passenger terminal’s facilities, is excellent. Got a great amount of pictures with lots of new planes for my collection. Lucky for me the weather was ok. I then went to another good spot on the southern end of the airport perimeter, near the lovely little village of Styal.
Beautiful Concorde sitting at the Manchester Viewing Park
Thunderstorm clouds rolling in as this Thomas Cook 757 takes to the skies
The plan for the day was to drive towards Luton Airport and visit a few airports along the route, such as Birmingham and Coventry, but the weather had turned bad again by that time and as traffic was quite heavy, I decide to continue straight to Luton. Good choice in retrospect, as I arrived in Luton only at eight thirty pm, 30 minutes late for giving the car back. This fortunately was no problem. I then took a taxi to my hotel for the night in Luton town, arriving there at nine pm only to be picked up the next morning early at four thirty am again.
In short, check-in and security at Luton Airport was a terrible experience. The hall was overcrowded, my flight to Istanbul sharing the same check-in desks as the Berlin flight. While standing in the queue, the PA system told us that there was a strict one piece of hand luggage policy, including items such as a small bag. Anyone with more than one item would be sent back to check-in (and probably miss the flight…) So I had to re-pack a bit but there was no way I could end up with one checked bag and one carry-on. So now I had to check two bags, which incurred a fee of GBP 10 (which is GBP 5 if you book it online). On top of that I now also had 4 kilos overweight, and this cost me GBP 24. So an extra 34 quid for the whole thing. I had to leave my passport at the check in desk and go t the customer service counter to pay the bill, which took ages as just one agent was working at the desk – and this during peak time… on top of tat, the guy in front of me had some kind of problem and totally flipped out, smashing his way through the metal barriers as he walked away cursing… ah well, nice start of the day…
So once I paid the exorbitant amount, I picked up my passport and boarding pass and made my way to the security screening, which again was overcrowded and took ages to get through. The guy wanted to look into my laptop bag and took out every single thing to examine it with a deep interest. I was feeling more and more like a criminal who was not guilty of anything except for being a traveller. Finally he put the whole thing through the x-ray machine again and told me with a big smile that all was alright and I could go to the gate. Thank you so much! Creep.
G-EZJM being made ready for the first flight of the day
Monday 9 July, LTN-SAW
EasyJet flight EZY2383
Boeing 737-700 G-EZJA
STD 0620, STA 1205
ATD 0630, ATA 1210
Boarding started almost immediately when I arrived at the gate, and we walked to our plane; I boarded through the rear door and made my way to seat 15A.
Take off was from runway 26, turning left towards Belgium and so on. From the in-flight service I bought a small menu consisting of a chicken tikka wrap, tomato soup and orange juice. Later I bought another two small cans of coke as I was quite thirsty. All this cost GBP 10. I also bought a set of playing cards picturing a 737 on the back.
Unfortunately the windows remained iced over throughout the flight, as they were wet on the ground and never dried up before taking off. The approach took us along the southern coast of Istanbul, offering a fantastic view of Ataturk Airport, the city, the Bosporus and the Princess Islands. However I could not take any good pictures because of the ice.
Landing was very rough, but… yeah well, we survived.
From my personal experience, Turkish officials (like immigration and customs agents) are not known to be very friendly and this was reconfirmed once again here at Sabiha Gokcen airport. First I had to buy a visa; this costs 10 euro for a Dutch passport. I gave the guy a 50 euro note and he said ‘Ten euro, ten euro’. I said I didn’t have a ten euro note. He now screamed ´Ten euro! Ten euro!’ I took back the 50 euro note and gave him a ten pound note. He looked at me sheepishly and again repeated ´Ten euro!´. I said, give me back five euro and it’s ok, but he was for some reason reluctant to do this; in the end I had enough of it and just walked away saying ‘Keep the fucking 5 euro, buy yourself a lunch with it’. The guy had a laugh. Ha ha, how funny. I wonder how many times he pulls off that joke. Then the immigration officer, who seemed perplexed with the amount of visas and stamps in my passport. He couldn’t seem to find the new visa just placed in the last section by that other guy. I tried to tell him it was in the back, and still he didn’t get it. Then he was fixated on one of my Thai visas, and asked me whether that was it? What??? Duh! Finally he got the message and found the visa. Jeez! How sad is it when you have to tell ‘professionals’ what to do?
On top of that, the office where I had reserved a car was not opened; no one there. Great. Hertz’s office was next door, and they could offer me a car for a slightly higher price, but it was a diesel so it would be cheaper to drive, so I said fine, give it to me. Finally I was on my way to Izmit, to spend some time with my family there. Only some though, because I arrived at their house at 2.30 pm, and packed up to go back to the airport around midnight.
Sabiha Gokcen is quite busy now at nights, with multiple flights to mainly German destinations. My flight was scheduled to leave at 03.25 am and luckily the screens showed that it would arrive on time. I say luckily, because I would have a tight connection upon arrival in Basel to get to the train station, take the train to Zurich and check in for my next flight there.
I had originally planned to travel to Basel, make my way to Geneva by train and fly to Amsterdam. Why not fly from Basel, I hear you say? Well because I have never been to Geneva and wanted to see the airport, do some spotting, etc. Two days before my departure from Thailand, the COO of a business jet operator in Vienna contacted me to ask whether I could come over for an interview. So I said fine, I should be able to make some changes to my itinerary. I ended up buying a fare from Zurich to Vienna with Niki and used frequent flyer miles to get a ticket from Vienna to Amsterdam with KLM cityhopper. Which I quite liked as these were two new airlines for me. Anyway, back to Sabiha for now.
I was the first one to check in for the flight to Basel. Nr 001 is said on my boarding pass. The check in agent took a good look at my carry-on bag and wanted me to put it in this little basket thing they use to determine maximum sizes. I said to him that I always travel with that bag, and I had come to Istanbul that day on easyJet as well. Never mind… use the basket thingy. Oh, ok, it was a tiny bit too large but it was fine anyway. Oh, thank you so much. So I just sat down somewhere and to my big surprise discovered that there is a wifi internet connection there. Great, checked some emails etc. People started to queue up for immigration and security control, so eventually I joined them too. First, a police officer checked the passport. Basically just flipped the pages, looking interested. Then the immigration officer did his thing, putting the stamp after looking at it quite seriously. Then… another passport check! This time by a customs officer. He did exactly the same thing as the first guy, just flipping the pages and looking important. All this took ages, and then there was another security screening. All in all, I ended up almost missing my flight because it took about one hour to travel from the departures lounge to the gate, a distance of maybe 50 metres. On top of that, the gate guy had the cheek to tell me that I was rather late! Well… I won’t mention here what I said at that point. Long live Turkey!
Tuesday 10 July, SAW-BSL
EasyJet flight EZY1144
Airbus A319 HB-JZG
STD 03.25, STA 05.30
ATD 03.25, ATA 05.15
The load on this flight was quite low, I would say about 35%. I sat in my chair, 23A, and I slept all the way till approach to Basel Airport. The approach seemed to take ages, through thick and bumpy layers of cloud. We had left on time and the captain had said the flight would take 2.50 hours, and, surprise, surprise, that’s exactly what it did. Even easyJet Switzerland forms part of the famous Swiss clockwork miracle. Basel being the cute little airport it was, it took no more than 20 minutes from the plane to the bus. And I was very happy with that because of the tight connection I mentioned before. I had booked my bus and train ticket to Zurich online so just hopped on the bus to Basel station and went on to the platform number for my train. Astonishingly, the train was delayed. Due to a problem with the locomotive, so nothing to do with the Swiss clockwork thing really. Luckily another train would leave to the airport at 06.40 and it did. It arrived at Zurich Airport at 07.58, about ten minutes before the official check-in closure for my Niki flight to Vienna. It all worked out well in the end, fortunately, but normally the last thing I would do is plan a travel scheme so tightly. This time I didn’t really have a better option, at least not such an affordable one.
Tuesday 10 July, ZRH-VIE
Niki flight HG8151
Airbus A321 OE-LOS
STD 0855, STA 1005
ATD 0855, ATA 1015
The flight boarded on time at gate E52, the aircraft being an A321 painted in the original Niki livery with the two red cheat lines on the side. I like this livery much more than the one with the fly on the nose. I get the message, the fun and the originality behind the fly, but I hate that livery. Anyway, the load on this flight was about 65%, so plenty of space in this well-appointed plane. Nice comfy seats (mine was 19F) and an in-flight entertainment system. All in all, I was very impressed with Niki. Professional cabin crew with classy uniforms, a captain who kept us very well informed, and a good service including free sandwich and drinks. The first round of service was for the passengers who had pre-booked a breakfast, which can be done online. If I am correct, the voice used in the safety demo was that of the former racer himself. Well done Niki, and it is obvious that they keep up the same high standard of service as Air Berlin does. We briefly entered a holding pattern because of heavy traffic at VIE and landed on Rwy 34.
I had a couple of hours to spend before the appointment and took the CAT (City Airport Train) to Vienna, which makes the non-stop trip in 16 minutes. Spent some time walking around and sitting in Starbucks, went for the interview, back to the airport, checked in about three hours before the flight and had a drink in one of the bars, watching the movements on the tarmac.
Tuesday 10 July, VIE-AMS
KLM cityhopper flight KL1848
Fokker 70 PH-KZD
STD 2025, STA 2235
ATD 2030, ATA 2215
The aircraft arrived at 1945 at gate C62, and boarding commenced on time. This was my second flight on a Fokker 70; the first was on the same route, in 1998, with Austrian Airlines. KLM cityhopper’s Fokkers look very smart, although I think the KLM logo is a bit overdone with the new livery where the letters appear on the front fuselage, on the engines and on the tail. I mean, even without any titles everyone would know what airline we’re dealing with, right? I sat down in 14A, which is one the side with 2 seats in the F70’s 2-3 cabin layout.
We took off from Rwy 29 and turned north, the routing taking us via Prague and Munster, over Lelystad, and finally landing on the infamous Polderbaan at Schiphol (Rwy 18R/36L). Service on board included a sandwich, with which I had a coke. Then I seem to have nodded off for a while and woke up again as coffee was served. I figured I could use a cup of caffeine to stay awake a bit longer… The approach seemed to be unusually low for a long time; I estimate we flew at an altitude of 5000 feet or so from Lelystad all the way till intercepting the ILS. This of course offered some fantastic views of the Dutch countryside. Landing was followed by a long taxi to the remote stands along the Kaagbaan (Rwy 06/24) and a short bus ride to the terminal. It took ages to get the suitcase, after which I met up with my parents, had another coffee and we made our way home.
On the Wednesday, my parents drove me back towards Schiphol, where I had booked a room in the Van der Valk airport hotel for the night. The following day I took the hotel shuttle bus to the airport at 8 am, which dropped me near Departure Hall 3 some ten minutes later. I then made my way to the bmibaby check-in and received my boarding pass in no-time. Schiphol has always been one of my favourite airports and despite the recent expansions I am happy to say that it still is. It is efficient, clean, functional and offers great photo opportunities, also from inside the terminal’s airside. I walked back and forth between the G gates and the D gates, taking many pictures of the parked aircraft. My flight would depart from the H gate, the dedicated low cost carrier pier. As the pier area is limited and offers no further facilities you are supposed to wait in the departures lounge until the screens tell you to go to the gate. Obviously I wanted to go sooner so I could take pictures of the aircraft parked there.
Royal Air Maroc used this big beauty for a flight to Nador
British rush hour at Schiphol's H-pier
According to my boarding pass, boarding would start around 9.15 for a 9.55 departure. Pretty soon it became clear to me that the flight would be delayed. The baby to Birmingham left on time, but my aircraft was nowhere to be seen. I found a power socket near the gate and made myself comfy with my laptop, now and again getting up to take a picture or two. Finally an announcement was made that the flight was now expected to start boarding at 11 am. Eleven came and went, and still no aircraft. The plane finally arrived at 11.15. Disembarking and boarding was done as fast as possible, but despite all that there seemed to be a small problem with documentation and we had to wait a bit longer. The captain and cabin crew did their speeches, but not once did they mention the delay, let alone apologised for it.
Thursday 12 July, AMS-EMA
Bmibaby flight WW5476
Boeing 737-500 G-BVZG
STD 0955, STA 1015
ATD 1145, ATA 1140
The crappy baby 737 taking me to East Midlands
The 737 looked very tired. The paint was peeling off the fuselage, the aircraft was dirty, the cabin looked old and had obviously not been cleaned. The magazine and the safety card in the seat pocket were dirty, stained, sticky and torn, and non-standard stickers had been used for quick patchwork throughout the cabin. Of course I know that peeling paint does not necessarily mean a bad maintenance state, but still, it does not help as far as image is concerned. The three flight attendants did not seem interested at all in doing their work and reluctantly did the bare minimum. Sure, maybe they were fed up because of the two-hour delay but hey, it is part of the job and we passengers had the same delay too. Anyway, we took off from runway 18L for the 55-minute flight to East Midlands Airport, also known as Nottingham.
The flight was pretty uneventful and I had a package of butter short bread, a kit kat and a Pepsi from the menu for 4 euros. Although the seat pitch seemed to be quite similar to easyJet’s, the tray table could hardly fit between my tummy and the chair in front of me, which was very uncomfortable. Luckily I could use the tray of the middle seat as I had the row to myself (I was seated in 18F). Both the purser and the captain made some more speeches but still no mention whatsoever about the long delay. Sure, I didn’t ask about it but how difficult is it to say something about it? Even if it was not their fault. After landing at East Midlands, we were parked on a remote stand and had to wait about 15 minutes for a bus. The captain thought he was funny and was joking about us having arrived in stealth mode and saying that empty buses were driving around but didn’t seem to know they had to come over to us. I didn’t think it was that funny actually, considering the circumstances and especially since EMA is a bmibaby base! And once the bus had picked us up, it dropped us off at a considerable distance from the arrivals hall anyway…
East Midlands must be one of the ugliest and simplest airports I have ever been too. The arrivals hall from the outside was just an old square building looking very much like a factory hall, and the inside was not much better either. Luckily the baggage was there fairly quick, and I made my way to the car rental counter.
I got a Peugeot 1007 this time. For the ones of you who have never seen this car, the little thing looks a bit like a space capsule. The Hertz agent spent five minutes explaining to me how to operate the doors; they slide open automatically. Very futuristic and handy, but weird at a first glance. I was wondering, thinking of the electrical problems many French cars seem to suffer often, what would happen if these doors would malfunction… well, I didn’t have to wonder for long as at a certain point the door refused to close…
A nice image from the English countryside: small dog meets big sheep
Among the number of things I did that Friday was visit the offices of Key Publishing in Stamford to meet the editors. I write for Airports of the World and Airliner World on a regular basis, and it is always nice to know the people you’re dealing with personally. With a bit of luck, I might get a contract with them for an aviation book I am currently working on as well…
'Virginia Plain' being made ready for her next flight
Saturday 14 July, MAN-DOH
Qatar Airways flight QR42
Airbus A330 A7-AEJ
STD 1020, STA 1920
ATD 1030, ATA 1915
Saturday morning I left the hotel, the Travelodge near Manchester Airport, at 07.30. After filling up the car and returning it to Hertz, I made my way to the check-in. There were sufficient check-in desks open for this flight to Doha so the process did not take too long. The security screening was strict but swift and after spending some time in the airside and taking pictures I made my way to gate 212. Boarding started well in time but despite that we left the gate with a small delay of ten minutes.
Climbing over the clouds and meeting the sun
This flight was in my opinion much better than the two flights coming to England; everything seemed to go well, the cabin crew was very enthusiastic about their work and the food served was excellent. In fact, the only minor thing I would say was not too good were the headsets for the in-flight entertainment, which are the uncomfortable walkman-type earphones instead of the headsets with shells used by, to name a recent example from my trips, Turkish Airlines.
The menu on this flight was:
1) Cajun chicken served on a bed of potato salad
2) Chicken fricassee served with peas and carrots and croquette potatoes
3) Lamb tikka with cabbage and pea curry and basmati rice
4) Paneer makhni with potato and cauliflower curry, yellow and white rice
Also a chocolate roularde, bread roll and butter, cheese with crackers, and chocolate.
The flight path took us to Romania, crossing the Black Sea towards Turkey, over Diyarbakir and east of the Iraqi border down to Doha. Approaching from the north we made a right downwind for runway 34, while the sun was setting on the horizon.
A beautiful sunset as we approach Doha International Airport
There were about 5.5 hours between the two flights and I had planned to get a visa on arrival and go into town for some Middle Eastern food. Obtaining a tourist visa was very easy: I just paid for it with my credit card at the immigration counter. The original plan was to take a taxi, but I asked around at the car rental counters and could get a small car for a very reasonable price, so I decided to do that instead. This of course allowed to see much more of Doha, which to me looks like Dubai, only ten years ago. Doubtlessly, Doha will grow to be a city similar to Dubai in the near future.
After some great Lebanese food and some more driving, I headed back to the airport. As I already had the boarding pass for Bangkok I could head straight to security screening. Question: why on earth do they have x-ray screening both just before and just after immigration??? This seems totally useless to me…
Upon entering the terminal I had seen that the BKK flight was delayed; the new estimated departure time was now 02.30. Oh well, I spent the time walking around a bit (but the terminal is quite small), sitting and drinking something and also managed to access the wireless internet connection from the Oryx Lounge. Many incoming flights, which would continue to the Far East, seemed to be delayed so I guess this was weather-related.
Sunday 15 July, DOH-BKK
Qatar Airways flight QR614
Airbus A330 A7-AEE (yellow Asian Games livery)
STD 0100, STA 1200
ATD 0240, ATA 1330
I can’t really tell much about this flight as I fell asleep right after take-off, woke up briefly to see that we were just entering Indian airspace, and fell asleep again only to wake up for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of:
1) Fresh tomato and parsley omelette with grilled chicken, sautéed mushrooms, buttered sweet corn and tomato
2) Chicken and potato quiche served with tomato, baked beans and hashbrown potato (note: I don’t think the baked beans are a good option in an airplane, if you know what I mean…)
3) Stir fried chicken and vegetables on egg noodles
These choices were accompanied by orange juice, fresh fruit, bread roll, butter and preserve and tea or coffee.
The approach took us north of Don Muang Airport, turning right to line up for Runway 19R. We docked at the E-concourse. Immigration, as expected, took very, very long: more than one hour from joining the queue until reaching the exit. It seems to me it is becoming worse every time here.
Anyway, this concluded a very interesting, busy, and sometimes rather exhausting trip. I hope you enjoyed reading my report and thanks for taking the time.
