PART ONE
Manchester-Las Palmas
Monday 10th July 2006
G-OBYB Boeing 767-304(ER) Booby Moore OBE
Arrived at MAN at around 4.45am to check-in. There were several TOM flights out that morning but there were several desks laid out for all TOM flights so it was a quick and easy affair. My seat was 35H.
We then went through security and had breakfast and shopped around until 6.45 when we were called to Gate 204 (ah the memories[8D]). There were a lot of aircraft at MAN at this time, and this redevelopment plan is so badly needed, T2 is chaos!
We started boarding at 7.05 and I was now doubting that we'll leave on time but everyone boarded quickly and we pushed back on time at 7.30. Looking at the remote stands G-VTOP had jsut arrived early from BGI and would operate that days MCO service.
Unfortunately a lot of aircraft were waiting to take off from 24L at this time (I counted 8 A/C), and it was not until 8am before we took off and climbed into the clear Cheshire skies.
The routing was as follows:-
West of Birmingham and London Southmapton and Jersey Bay of Biscay and Northern Spain South-west of Porto West of Lisbon and down the Atlantic Flew over the eastern shores of Gran Canaria
This is not a direct routing. I know of 3 routings that LPA-bound aircraft can take from MAN and this is one of them.
Breakfast was soon served and this consisted of the following: -
Corn Flakes with UHT Milk Full English Breakfast Citrus fruit tub
Since I wasn't that hungry I only had the Corn Flakes and the hash browns from the Full English. It was good enough though since I was expecting much worse.
The cabin on G-OBYB has recently been refitted with all-leather seats and these proved to be comfortable. Legroom is another thing, I'm 6ft and my knees were only centimetres away from the back of the other seat. The legrooms fine for the short-hauls that TOM employ some of their 767s on but longhaul[?]
The IFE was typical of charter airlines. Ice Age 2 was shown followed by a range of TV programmes and a selection of pre-recorded radio channels[|)]. I chose to listen to my MP3 player instead.
Crusing altitude was 35,000ft and we would've made up some time flying down there but the Captain had informed us that we would be facing headwind all the way down there so a late arrival was inevitable.[:(!]
We landed at around 12.35 on runway 3L at LPA. It was a bumpy landing and reverse thrust was not used. Instead breaking for 3/4 length of the runway.
No reason why, but the main thing was that we're here now in Las Palmas and the First Officer came on and thanked us for flying with Thomsonfly adn wished us a pleasant holiday.
Disembarkment was quick and bags were soon collected. We then picked up our rental car and we were off to Puerto Rico.
PART TWO
Las Palmas-Manchester
Monday 17th July 2006
G-OBYF Boeing 767-304(ER)
Well then after a week of subathing, relaxing, scuba diving and some driving around the hot island it was time to head back home. I had had such a good time out here I didn't want to go home. In fact I was feeling a bit emotional about it last night. I had taken a liking this girl who was staying in my hotel (Bahia Blanca, Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria), so you'd probably undertand why I was like that.
Anyway this is not a broken hearts forum so I'll move on now to my flight home. We arrived at the airport at 10am with a good hour to spare before checking in. We would be checking in after the Birmingham flight had been sorted out so we waited at the back of that queue.
We was the first group to check-in and I was sat in seat 2C. We went through security which was a breeze compared to Manchester before heading to the food court.
At 12.30 we were called to gate A12 to hop on a bus to board G-OBYF which was waiting at a remote stand to take us back to MAN. This was done rather quickly again and we pushed back on time at 13.10 and we took off from runway 3R 15 minutes later. LPA has two runways and is capable of handling 747's and A340's (I know because I saw an IB A340 take-off for MAD).
Todays routing was the direct one and it is as follows:-
Atlantic Ocean Portugal and Bilbao Bayof Biscay and Brittany Cornwall and Welsh Borders Over Liverpool and 24R approach
After about hour and a half dinner was served. This consisted of the following:-
Chicken and Vegetable Cobbler
Strawberry Shortcake
Cheese and Crackers
Bread Roll
Lily O'Briens chocolate bar
Tea or coffee
The meal was again quite tasty and kind of exceeded my expectations.[:p]
Like the outbound journey, the IFE was programs and a movie plus radio channels. Todays movie was The Chronicles of Narnia and was shwon from end of the meal service until final descent.[n] Not something to write home about so I listened to my MP3 player again.
When the duty free came around I bought a Thomsonfly 763 model to add to my collection (14 now, 3 of them are VS 747s!). I had bought a TUI liveried Britannia 763 in 2002 and wasn't that detailed but I;m glad to see that this one is better detailed.
The crusing altitude was 36,000ft at a speed of 557mph.
Our descent was kind of bumpy when we flew over the Pennines for a 24R landing and landed 20 minutes early, and we were on stand 10 minutes later[:D]
After disembarking a short wait pursued for luggage before picking up our car and heading home.
Overall the flight went smooth and exceeded my expectations. The only think that let me down was the legroom despite the seats being rather comfortable. Therefore I am giving Thomsonfly 8/10.
I'm glad to see that the quality of the service hasn't gone down with the Britannia name. Well done TUI /Thomsonfly.[y]
If anyone has any questions or comments please feel free to ask and I will answer the best I can.
VS075
