Left the Holiday Inn Express Dublin Airport around 11:30 for my 14:15 flight back home to MAN. It's worth nothing that the free hotel shuttle buses to DUB actually depart from the Crowne Plaza hotel, which is immediately next door. A quick 10 min drive to DUB T2.
I'd already done advance online check-in (EI let you check-in online upto 30 days in advance for many of their flights now). Still no PassBook boarding passes with EI (even though they have an iOS app) so back to the old-school paper print outs for EI flights. I'd paid a little extra for a seat near the front of the aircraft, seat 1D and that also gives you priority boarding.
Bag drop was painless and the queue was nice and short. Up to departures via a cafe for a quick coffee. Security was again also painless and quick. I'd booked the EI lounge (€15 I think it was) so once through security I made my way to he nice EI lounge there. Headed upstairs where it's quieter and you get nice views of departures gates. As HoneyLamb has already mentioned, they only announce trans-Atlantic flights from the lounge so keep your eye on the screens. Once the boarding gate appeared on screen, I said my goodbyes and left the lounge. It's a short walk to the gate area (sorry cannot remember the gate number now).
The flight was soon called and priority boarding is in place and was working well. I was warmly welcomed on board. Noticed we where parked up next to EI-DEO (the ex-Virgin Little Red aircraft) showing off her new uniform:
The aircraft soon filled up and before long the door was closed. We pushed back a few minutes early and before long we were on out way to MAN. The in-flight service soon started offering a selection of snacks and drinks for sale. The flight time was around 50minutes I think.
Landed at MAN and taxied to T1. A remote stand so buses back to the terminal (EI use the old manual stands at MAN T1 anyway, the ones with no jet bridges). A short wait for bags, thankfully not as long as the arriving flight in front of us that pax where waiting for at the same carousel as our flight, as apparently they had been waiting almost an hour!!
Through customs and into the arrivals hall. Used one of the courtesy phones to call the Crowne Plaza to tell them I was back, headed outside to the relevant bus stop and only had a short wait for the hotel shuttle bus to turn up. back to the hotel where I was soon re-united with my car key and off I went.
All in all a good EI flight
Have since noticed that both my EI flights are landing in my BAEC account with no miles though
I'd have no hesitations is doing this again to get to/from DUB. Even with the EI flights and the hotel in DUB, it's still much cheaper flying on one of these EURZ VS fares
Regards
James Mitchell
James Mitchell
