Flights you have been on

I used to have a job in E London, so I regularly travelled EDI - LCY on BA Cityflyer. I also used them to go from City to Amsterdam and Palma for holidays many times.
I love the EMB 170 & 190/190 SRs....they're nice slim attractive aircraft, I like the 2x2 seating (no aisle seats) and the decent leather seats and their spacing. Only downside is that it occasionally spits bits of frozen ice out of the aircon vents!
But going on holiday to Mallorca on a plush Cityflyer EMB 190SR takes a bit of beating.
I've flown the KLM Cityhopper EMBs too on the City - Schiphol route, but they're not as comfortable and the seats are crap.
However, when it comes to City - Amsterdam, anything beats the horrendous F50s VLM used to operate on that route! I half expected to be handed a parachute when boarding!

It's been a much quieter year for me. While I'm not a frequent flyer I did 42 flights last year, which compared to the pandemic years felt quite busy.
However, what stood out this year was that I had been to nearly as many different airports as flights. My pattern of both work and leisure travel this year meant I've had very few repeat airports. It's miniscule compared to most, but of the 22 flights I have taken this year, I used 19 airports in the process. Compared to 2022, which was 42 flights and only 29 airports, this is quite a scatter gun year and it's only going to get worse through the rest of the year with a work trip stitched together covering five countries on three continents.

Some of this is also down to weird flight availability and pricing. I don't know what's going on at the moment, but there are some very weird pricing structures going on. Where typically a return flight with a single airline was the cheapest, our corporate travel agent is now stitching together some attractive fares but with two different (different alliance) airlines. On my next trip to the Baltics, SAS return was quoted as some insane amount, but outbound with SAS and return with Finnair came out at about a quarter of that (rivalling airBaltic or the low cost airlines). It's a similar story for an upcoming trip to the Indian sub-continent. Interesting for me in the sense that I get to try a plethora of new airlines, bad for my frequent flyer status. I suspect I will lose Flying Blue status for the first time in years.

atillathehunn said:

While I'm not a frequent flyer I did 42 flights last year

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I'd count that as "frequent flying"?

This year for me:
BHX-BFS on G-EZOX a 6 hour 20 minutes delay on that one departing.
BFS-BHX on G-EZOK
BHX-WAW on HA-LXD
WMI-BHX on EI-EFD
BHX-DUB on EI-DLG
DUB-BHX on EI-DPR.

Haven't got the serials to hand but.

BHX-DUS Eurowings (operated by Air Baltic) CS300/A220, very nice aeroplane.
DUS_BHX same aircraft
LGW-ARN Norwegian 737-800
ARN-OSL Ethiopian 787-9
OSL-CPH Norwegian 737-800
BLL-BHX Ryanair 737-8MAX200, also very nice.
BRS-DLM Easyjet A321NEO
DLM-BRS Easyjet A321NEO

54 flights this year so far, mostly the usual 737/A320 culprits, EZY, RYR, BAW, UAL, etc.

Some interesting moves however were:

British Airways 777-300ER Heathrow - Dublin
Lufthansa 747-400 Frankfurt - Palma
Lufthansa A330-300 Frankfurt - Barcelona
Jet2 (Airtanker) A330-200 Tenerife - Manchester
United 777-200 San Francisco - Denver

I've also had the 'pleasure' of flying 3 times with Frontier, who are seemingly unable to clean their cabins during a 75 minute turnaround.

About 36 flights for me in the last 12 months, all business.

Manchester to Belfast and back with Easysjet, twice, always late even when it's an 0'crack sparrowfart flight out of Manchester

Manchester to Vienna, direct, with Austrian about 16 times. A mix of Airbus and Embraer types.

Vienna to Manchester, via Brussels or Frankfurt or Amsterdam, about 10 times on a mix of Star Alliance airlines.

Manchester to Munich, direct, with Lufthansa a couple of times.

Munich to Manchester, direct or via Brussels, a couple of times on Star Alliance airlines.

Last week's flight out to Vienna was horrendous (booked direct flight at 13:15 from Manchester was cancelled with 2 hours notice, automatically rebooked on to 17.45 via Munich, about 2 hours before departure notified departure delayed until 19.10, transferred on to 18:05 via Frankfurt, which didn't depart until 20.00 so connecting flight to Vienna departed while we were in the air, automatically rebooked on to 06.50 from Frankfurt to Vienna for following morning, Lufthansa at Frankfurt airport could have given less of a sh*t, no hotel rooms to give out, find your own and claim back, company travel provider found one for me, got there at 00:30 to leave at 05:00 to get back to the airport, arrived ~17 hours later than originally booked) but other than that it's bene painless.

I flew out to Palma de Mallorca with Tui last Wednesday, got delayed from our 07:45 departure slot on the stand as a storm over Mallorca resulted in slots being severely restricted. Eventually we got into the air a fraction over an hour late. My return yesterday on the 20:15 was bang on the money, although coming into the back end of the storm on approach to Manchester was a little choppy. Both craft were bog standard 737-8s, although the outbound leg seemed to be a new craft, not fully liveried and with a distinctive new plane smell.

I flew to Gran Canaria with Ryanair today. It actually looked to be a pretty bad flight, as in the Stansted airport terminal there was an announcement that said something along the lines of there being no catering facilities onboard. And then, the flight was delayed after boarding (can’t remember why). It could have been by 60 minutes, but in the end we were off the gate 45 minutes after our scheduled departure time. However, there was a trolley throughout cruise, and I got a fanta.

Going to be making the return trip on Monday, so hopefully that will be better!

I was supposed to fly to JFK with Lufthansa yesterday. Had been looking forward to it for months since it was my first (and likely only) trip in the nose cone (seat 1A) of the 747. Unfortunately my first flight from Glasgow left nearly 3 hours late due to a crack discovered in the windscreen resulting in a missed connection.

Ended up being rerouted via Paris when we arrived in Frankfurt and then on Air France to JFK. It was a great flight in fairness - exceptional food and their business class is better than Lufthansa, but given my reason for my original routing was to fly in the 747 nose, it was a bit of a downer!

Flying back next week which will at least be on the upper deck of a 747-8 which will be fun

So today I made the return journey from Gran Canaria to Stansted with Ryanair. It did have all the catering this time, and I had to do something I thought I would never do whilst waiting for the toilet - sit on the attendant seat (yes seriously). This was due to the trolley coming up near to the front of the plane, and that toilet was my closest, so I did that to allow for it to be put away. It was also promoted by an attendant. Other than that, it was a typical Ryanair flight.

Ba 94/95 in the past few weeks.
I take these flights twice a year and nearly always they depart and arrive at remote gates at lhr.
Remote gates should not be used for wide bodies. Bussing a 777 full of passengers takes ages - took us 35 minutes from arriving at stand until leaving the aircraft and then a bus to arrivals
Boarding wide bodies at remote stands is time consuming too due to the first few buses being business class passengers (so no people standing) another for premium economy then full and squashed buses for the rest of us.

The ba breakfast has been terrible for the past few years too

I have been to 4 airports 6 times in the last fortnight, though only flew once - it's great to have people visiting over New Year, but it's also a lot of shuttling to and from airports...

I have 8 flights (2 Emirates, 2 flyDubai, 4 Turkish Airlines) booked over the next 4 weeks, heading to a new CIS country for me, and another country with a complex history of British and Soviet occupation. There's a another 8 planned flights before Easter, though our counterparts have not yet confirmed. This would push me to a record number of new countries (3) and flights taken between Christmas and Easter (17).

One of my most unusual flights was a special enthusiast flight from Gatwick to celebrate the end of Dan-Air Comets. The idea was to fly a circuit over the Bay of Biscay to northern France. The weather was so abysmal that the pilot came on and said that it was a bit pointless as you wouldn't be able to see anything and it would just be continued turbulence.
He then said that, as compensation, ATC at Gatwick had agreed a Touch and Go which apparently was pretty unheard of to agree to that. It was pretty exciting but as the flight was so heavily booked they did another one the following Saturday (although presumably without the Touch and Go) so it turned out not to be the final flight of a Dan-Air Comet after all.
Still exciting all the same

Lawrie

My return from New York was the other day and got to tick off my first trip on a 747-8 (and second in the upper deck). On landing in Frankfurt, we were given a remote stand which was a real treat!

D1511 said:

However, when it comes to City - Amsterdam, anything beats the horrendous F50s VLM used to operate on that route! I half expected to be handed a parachute when boarding!

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For about three years between 1999-2002 I used to commute weekly from LCY-AMS on KLMuk’s Fokker 50s. I loved them, though they seemed painfully slow compared to the E190s now. Had a few bumpy flights, usually when returning to the UK on a wintry Friday evening. Biggest delay was on the evening before the Dutch royal wedding in 2002 - atrocious weather, wind and rain with an indefinite delay for the last LCY flight of the day. I was in the KLM lounge at AMS airport watching some bizarre music event for the royal family, with all the international dignitaries assembled at the Amsterdam Arena in the pouring rain. Eventually at about 22.00 our flight was called, but of course by then it was too late to arrive at LCY before the nighttime closure, so ended up diverted to Stansted.

atillathehunn said:

I have been to 4 airports 6 times in the last fortnight, though only flew once - it's great to have people visiting over New Year, but it's also a lot of shuttling to and from airports...

I have 8 flights (2 Emirates, 2 flyDubai, 4 Turkish Airlines) booked over the next 4 weeks, heading to a new CIS country for me, and another country with a complex history of British and Soviet occupation. There's a another 8 planned flights before Easter, though our counterparts have not yet confirmed. This would push me to a record number of new countries (3) and flights taken between Christmas and Easter (17).

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Last week saw me take one of the most beautiful flights I've ever been on: DXB-KBL. Stunning scenery on a crystal clear day.

However, flyDubai doesn't win any awards. The seats on the MAX8 are comfortable enough, though a little snug on the leg room. Thankfully, I had the entire row (and frankly, nearly the entire plane) to myself.

You have to pay to unlock the IFE (premium or basic packages but nothing free). There's a small free snack which was quite tasty.

Dubai T2 is also very cramped.

alholmes said:

For about three years between 1999-2002 I used to commute weekly from LCY-AMS on KLMuk’s Fokker 50s. I loved them, though they seemed painfully slow compared to the E190s now. Had a few bumpy flights, usually when returning to the UK on a wintry Friday evening. Biggest delay was on the evening before the Dutch royal wedding in 2002 - atrocious weather, wind and rain with an indefinite delay for the last LCY flight of the day. I was in the KLM lounge at AMS airport watching some bizarre music event for the royal family, with all the international dignitaries assembled at the Amsterdam Arena in the pouring rain. Eventually at about 22.00 our flight was called, but of course by then it was too late to arrive at LCY before the nighttime closure, so ended up diverted to Stansted.

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We will almost certainly have shared a plane in that case. I was also doing that journey weekly back then, although I sometimes used the VLM flights......or the Flemish Air Transport Company! Their meals were far better, you got real glasses for your drinks and sweets on take off and landing! And a Belgian chocolate as you disembarked! And it was often a lot cheaper than KLM. I used to regularly see the same people travelling, to nod of acknowledgement stage, so perhaps you were one of those! The F50s were sturdy aircraft alright and the seating rake was generous on VLM, but my big issue with the F50s was the yaw! You expect planes to go up and down a lot, but not travel quite so much sideways in that oscillating way that is pure Fokker!
I recall one trip in about 2007 flying back through a weather front.....we left Amsterdam on a cold clear night and landed at City in a howling gale. The yaw and sudden drops due to the wind shear as we hit the heavy rain and drop in pressure at the front was frankly scary, and it's the only time I've ever seen cabin crew just tip the contents of everyone's trays into a bin bag dragged down the aisle! I was glad to "enjoy" the traditional left then right landing on those long undercarriage legs for once that night! (I always thought it very WW2 like that they folded forwards into the engine nacelles!)
In my 50 plus flights on F50s, I don't think both rear sets of wheels touched down at the same time more than 5 times! I used to enjoy watching all the passengers' heads lean left and then right on landing (or vice versa, depending on crosswind direction!)

I got to fly a Fokker 50 once from Glasgow to Cardiff around ten years ago.

I recently flew Jet2 from GVA to MAN to fly a 757.

5th flight of the 2024 ended up being the most interesting one so far

EI3280 - Dublin to Bristol using an Aer Lingus Regional ATR72 , had two missed landing attempts at Bristol, before the pilot decided to try at Cardiff. Having also encountered visibilty issues in Cardiff , we were then sent to Birmingham where we could finally land.

Interesting to note earlier comments about Wizz. The first and hopefully last time I flew with them, my first attempt to fly from Luton to Ljubljana had to turn back over Frankfurt due to engine problems. Seem to remember being texted a £1.50 voucher to use at airport outlets while we were stuck on the tarmac at Luton waiting for buses to come and unload us. Flight was cancelled in the end and after a phonecall with their very cantankerous call centre I thankfully got a full refund before rebooking the flight for the following week and rearranging my travels....everything went without a hitch although my return flight back to Luton was the first one that week that hadn't been cancelled!

Otherwise it's been regular trips from Stansted to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden with Ryanair, operated by their Malta Air subsidiary. It's is a curious little airport, formerly being a Canadian Air Force base constructed in the 1950s, with some of the old arch-shaped hangars seemingly still in situ. Mostly the older 737s although if you're lucky you get a 737NG, or I see flightradar showing that 737MAX's now occasionally operate the route.

I also had the pleasure of my first long-distance flight in about a decade, with a trip to Orlando in Florida for business. BA 777s from Gatwick there and back, and the luxury of a upgrade to Premium Economy on the outbound leg which made things so much more comfortable. The 777s are still decent machines although showing their age a little I thought.
Heading back was an overnight flight stuck at the back of the plane in economy which I can't say I'd be willing to do again!

My 2024 so far: 4 flights for 526 miles.

Island life, eh!

CBlue said:

Interesting to note earlier comments about Wizz. The first and hopefully last time I flew with them, my first attempt to fly from Luton to Ljubljana had to turn back over Frankfurt due to engine problems. Seem to remember being texted a £1.50 voucher to use at airport outlets while we were stuck on the tarmac at Luton waiting for buses to come and unload us. Flight was cancelled in the end and after a phonecall with their very cantankerous call centre I thankfully got a full refund before rebooking the flight for the following week and rearranging my travels....everything went without a hitch although my return flight back to Luton was the first one that week that hadn't been cancelled!

Otherwise it's been regular trips from Stansted to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden with Ryanair, operated by their Malta Air subsidiary. It's is a curious little airport, formerly being a Canadian Air Force base constructed in the 1950s, with some of the old arch-shaped hangars seemingly still in situ. Mostly the older 737s although if you're lucky you get a 737NG, or I see flightradar showing that 737MAX's now occasionally operate the route.

I also had the pleasure of my first long-distance flight in about a decade, with a trip to Orlando in Florida for business. BA 777s from Gatwick there and back, and the luxury of a upgrade to Premium Economy on the outbound leg which made things so much more comfortable. The 777s are still decent machines although showing their age a little I thought.
Heading back was an overnight flight stuck at the back of the plane in economy which I can't say I'd be willing to do again!

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For Wizzair, over and above widespread complaints about payment of compensation and re-imbursement (upheld now by courts) is their turn over rate on routes.

Today they have removed 84 routes from the system (source: https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/240207-w6w4ns24cxld), spread right across their network. In the UK, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds/Bradford, Bristol, Edinburgh and Luton all see cuts. A small proportion of these appear to be swaps between Fiumicino and Ciampino.

Their approach appear to be a dart-board based approach and see what sticks. While all airlines add and remove routes, the Wizz approach is far more frequent, which makes advance planning rather difficult.

Perhaps it's me that is cursed.

I was booked EIN-FCO and return - while I think the route continues, both of my flights were cancelled.

I flew CGN - SJJ and return - route now removed (not long after we flew)

I flew MXP-CWL - route now removed (in fact, about 2 weeks after I flew).

The new Istanbul airport is not only enormous with some lengthy walking times between gates. This is made longer by an absence of a 'train' or similar between piers.

The WiFi system is ridiculous. You need to go to a stand, swipe your passport and get a chit with a number on it to log-in. This gives you one hour free internet access. After that it's about €6.50 for 2 hours, or about €9.50 for longer access. Even the worst airports give some level of free WiFi for a number of hours. They offer quite a number of connections with fairly lengthy connections at Istanbul, so this level of internet access is weak. I don't travel enough on TK to get status, so the lounges are beyond my reach. Prices are also unwarranted, even at relatively cheap places like Simit Saray (a bakery chain common across Turkey) - $16 for two coffees and two pastries is a bit unreasonable.

Milestone flights​

Just my milestone flights

July 1970 Manchester-Palma 1 BR
Aug 17th 1988 Tangiers-Gibraltar 4 GBA First propeller plane
Feb 10th 1996 Manchester-Newark 13 CO First Transatlantic
Jan 12th 2002 Orlando – Fort Lauderdale 100 SW
Oct 27th 2002 KC – Houston (Bush) 150 CO 1* 1st to be upgraded
Apr 23rd 2003 Newark-Manchester 191 CO 1*
First International and TATL to be upgraded
June 23rd 2003 Blackpool – Dublin 200 RY
July 15th 2004 Newark – Manchester 274 CO 50th Transatlantic
July 11th 2005 Cleveland - KC 300 CO
Sept 2nd 2006 Houston – Buenos Aires Int. 334 CO
First across Tropic of Cancer/Equator/Tropic of Capricorn and Southern Hemisphere
May 27th 2007 Lake Hood Seaplane Base 351 RUST First take-off and landing on water
June 15th 2008 Great Falls - MSP 400 NW
Aug 15th 2010 Boston – Charlotte 500 US 1*
April 21st 2012 MSP – Sioux Falls, SD 600 DL
May 6th 2012 El Paso –Dallas Love Field 613 SW 100th US airport
July 14th 2012 Anchorage – Kotzebue 647 AS 1st across Arctic Circle
Sept 4th 2012 Detroit – KC 677 DL 100th flight first class
Oct 9th 2012 MSP –Amsterdam 689 DL 100th transatlantic flight
Nov 2nd 2012 Cincinnati –KC 700 DL
Aug 10th 2013 Denver –Wilmington, DE 770 F9 All 50 states flown in/out
Oct 27th 2013 LAX- Minn- St Paul 800 DL
Oct 28th 2013 KC –Atlanta 802 DL 100th DL flight in 1st class
Dec 11th 2013 Detroit – KC 835 DL 300th flight in/out KC
Mar 25th 2014 Atlanta –Dayton 870 DL 200th flight in 1st Class
May 12th 2014 Minneapolis St Paul –KC 900 DL
Jan 20th 2015 Dayton – Atlanta 1000 DL
July 26th 2015 Minn St Paul – Detroit 1085 DL 300th flight in 1st Class
Aug 21st 2015 Dayton – Atlanta 1100 DL
Sept 13th 2015 Detroit –Seoul St Korea 1120 DL 1st trans-polar flight
Sept 18th 2015 Seoul St Korea –Seattle 1121 DL 1st trans-pacific flight
Dec 23rd 2015 Atlanta – Manchester 1157 VS 150th transatlantic flight
Apr 23rd 2016 Portland, OR –Anchorage 1200 AS
Nov 23rd 2016 Atlanta – Manchester 1294 VS 400th flight in 1st Class
Dec 4th 2016 Las Vegas – Cincinnati 1300 DL
July 22nd 2017 Atlanta -Destin FL 1400 DL
Dec 18th 2017 Detroit – Dayton 1467 DL 500th flight in 1st Class
Feb 18th 2018 Atlanta – Dayton 1* 1500 DL
May 11th 2018 Minn St Paul – Billings MT 1* 1522 DL 200th airport
Sept 13th 2018 Dalton, GA – Tifton, GA 1585 Star 1st trip private plane
Nov 4th 2018 JFK- Atlanta 1600 DL
Apr 15th 2019 Chattanooga- Atlanta 1648 DL 500th Atlanta flight
Aug 4th 2019 Amsterdam -Atlanta 1* 1675 DL 200th transatlantic flight
Aug 11th 2019 Salt Lake City -Atlanta 1* 1679 DL 900th DL flight
Aug 24th 2019 Honolulu – LAX 1* 1685 DL 600th flight in 1st class
Oct 19th 2019 Chattanooga – Atlanta 1* 1700 DL
Nov 22nd 2019 Detroit -Minn St Paul 1* 1705 DL 500th DL flight in 1st
July 17th 2020 Atlanta – Boston 1* 1783 DL 600th Atlanta flight
Nov 7th 2020 Salt Lake – Medford, OR 1* 1800 DL
Dec 12th 2020 Oklahoma City-Salt Lake City 1* 1814 DL 1000th DL metal flight
May 31st 2021 Atlanta - Chattanooga 1* 1861 DL 700th flight in 1st
Oct 10th 2021 Kansas City – Atlanta 1* 1900 DL
Oct 10th 2021 Atlanta - Chattanooga 1* 1901 DL 600th DL flight in 1st
Oct 20th 2021 Las Vegas – Detroit 1907 DL 1 million BIS DL miles
Jan 23rd 2022 Boston – Atlanta 1* 1937 DL 1100th DL metal flight
May 5th 2022 Atlanta – Manchester 1* 1956 VS 700th Atlanta flight
Sept 2nd 2022 Seattle- Anchorage 1999 DL 2 millionth mile
Sept 4th 2022 Anchorage Lake Hood RT 2000 Rusts
Apr 20th 2023 Chattanooga – Atlanta 1* 2054 DL 800th flight in 1st
Apr 24th 2023 Atlanta – Chattanooga 2059 DL 100th flight into CHA
Apr 28th 2023 Chattanooga – Atlanta 1* 2060 DL 100th flight out of CHA
June 4th 2023 Atlanta – Chattanooga 2068 DL 1200th DL metal Flight
June 20th 2023 Atlanta – Detroit 1* 2078 DL 100th flight into DTW
June 22nd 2023 Detroit -Chattanooga 1* 2079 DL 100th flight out of DTW
Sept 8th 2023 Chattanooga -Atlanta 1* 2104 DL 800th flight Atlanta
Sept 9th 2023 Seattle – Portland 1* 2108 DL 700th DL flight in 1st

Just back from my fifth trip to BKK with Qatar Airlines (MAN - DOH, DOH - BKK and return). I find the times and prices convenient (and I like the food) so I joined the loyalty club. This time I got window seats all the way without having to ask - it's nice to be welcomed but it's embarrassing when the stewardess leans across two other people just to greet me and ask if there's anything she can do to make my flight even more enjoyable!

Emirates BOM-DXB-LGW Economy. Both legs in A380s 3 class layout. Aircraft on both legs clean and well maintained. Decent seats, entertainment a bit meh.

Very slow meal service BOM-DXB, they needn't have bothered, food was the worst l have ever experienced aboard Emirates.

DXB-LGW Much better service and food.

I have noticed when flying with Gulf based airlines to India, that service and facilities on the Indian leg fall way below what they would like to present as their face to the world.

Just in ATL F terminal SkyClub right now. I am on VS110 to MAN for a quick family visit to Blighty.

That should be G-VRAY you will be on.