Saturday, July 16, 2011

On the way back to Lisbon


On the last Post I described my trip to Lausanne, Switzerland. Now here's the way back to Lisbon.

First there was the train ride from Lausanne to Geneva in order to get to the Airport. The check in went normally without problems and the queue wasn't long as it was early  for my flight. After a coffee and a small internet consult, about that internet in Geneva Airport has 1 hour free all you have to do is sending your cell number to receive the password, as I was saying after the coffee I've headed for the security checks witch I think are getting to small for the number of passengers but very well organized witch allowed to walk through without major delays.


The boarding went normally and there I was again in an Airbus A319 from Iberia. Now there was a special thing about this aircraft. It's name was the "Lince Ibérico", Iberian Lynx, in all seats among with safety card a on board magazine there was the explanation of the name of the aircraft. Normally Iberia names their aircraft with personality names but this was different. On the flyer there was a small text about the Iberian Lynx witch is the only wild cat close to extinction. There are only small groups mostly in Spain that live in pure freedom  and there are several tries in Spain and Portugal with a moderate success to reproduce the species in natural reserves and specially made parks to that effect.

Airbus A319-111 aircraft picture

After flying on the "Lynx" there I was again on Terminal 4 of Madrid Barajas and after another smooth landing I really start to think seriously about the best landing contest thing.

This final leg started in the worst way... with a delay. Well it wasn't a huge delay just about 30 minutes but still a delay. You have to do it better Iberia.
With a good tail wind and a fast boarding the delay was practically recovered and at the time of landing there was only a 10 minutes delay witch is a good recovery.

The landing at Lisbon Airport wasn't so smooth as the rest of this journeys landings due to some cross winds and turbulence on final of runway 03 but even though a good one.

Balance of this trip: first of all I would like to express here my appreciation  for the sympathy of the Iberia crews not perfect but very good; second I think that the flights went very normally without anything abnormal to report about the them; third the price was really a good price and the turnaround at Madrid is no sacrifice after all I'm a Pilot.

One thing I think isn't so good but I understand due to the economical situation of Europe and specially Airlines, you see there was no catering service unless you pay and a Sandwich at 7€ is to much I'm sorry after all Iberia is still a Flag Airline not a low cost that treats passengers as cattle sometimes. But there are economical reasons for this and the competition for the internal routes in Europe is at it's top and of course with the competition of the low cost airlines reducing anything on board is a tough competition and the truth is that my tickets were cheaper than Easy Jet's cheapest ticket when I bought them so let's think it compensates the sacrifice.

2 comments:

Rui Sousa, Madeira Spotters said...

Experimentei também a Ibéria pela primeira vez quando fomos a Veneza.
O preço era também o mais barato, com escalas em Barcelona à ida e Madrid no regresso (chatice...hehe).

Confesso que a parte de não darem nem um copito de água não soou muito bem mas, a parte que realmente não gostei foi da simpatia (ou falta dela...para não dizer mesmo antipatia...) da maioria do pessoal de bordo...

Filipe Cardoso said...

Pois é Rui mas isso acho que vai das pessoas e não da companhia em si, o copo de água não foi negado à senhora que se sentou ao meu lado e a simpatia até que foi razoável.

Em conversa com um piloto da TAP fiquei a saber que o layout tanto to A319 como do A320 é igual bem como a tripulação de cabine é a mesma em número. Se na TAP é mais é mais caro? Sim é, mas se o serviço é melhor? Sem dúvida!

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