MyTravel Airways EMA-FUE-EMA A320

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Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 399

Outbound Flight: MYT531
Aircraft: A320 G-FHAJ
Scheduled Departure time: 0700
Flight time: 3hrs 45mins

I booked these flights on the MyTravel.com website, for which I got an internet discount. However, I learned later on that you cannot pre-book meals or seats when booking on their website. MyTravel pre-flight services were very helpful with arranging special request before the flight, but only once I had called several different 0870 numbers to be told each time "It's not my department". I dread to think of my phone bill!

Flight check-in outbound at EMA was very smooth and the same Servisair staff member boarded the flight. Luckily I think we beat the queue. East Midlands Airport can now be a pain with regular bus rides due to no air bridges, but luckily we avoided this due to our aircraft being at Gate 2. This area is generally used for domestic and bmi regional departures I believe.

The A320 aircraft was clean, and in full MYT livery for a change! Cabin Crew were OK, not overly friendly, but not rude either. They seemed to like pulling the galley curtain and chatting to each other a lot, thats all I'll say! :p

We took our seats in row 2 and watched in horror as "those" people who'd paid extra for an exit sat down in 1C & D with their look of self-importance! Push back and take off was all very quick, no messing about with missing bags or pax for a change. We we're airborne perhaps just 5mins late.

Didn't bother much with the In-flight enterainment, I was in no mood having been woken at 3am with just 3hrs sleep! I don't think the crew managed to sell many headsets, think everyone just wanted to be fed and go back to sleep. The selection of music channels looks good, although the film looked pretty dire.

I'd heard that MYT had changed their catering recently and introduced some new revolutionary service with larger portions etc. Outbound meal service was what I presumed to be their new catering, which basically looks like a cost cutting excerise! You are given a small cardboard box with orange juice cuplet, cold bread roll, butter, muffin, cutlery etc. Then another crew member follows round with the usual small hot meal container on its own, very strange set up. Its definately not larger portions. You get no more than you did before, but I think they like to give you the impression you are getting more!

Seat pitch is OK on the A320. The outbound flight did get bit a tedious with the cabin crew constantly making announcements about selling this, that and the other. It almost smacked of desperation at one point. You really had no chance of sleeping with the PA constantly being picked up and everyone being shreaked at to get your wallets out to buy something else.

Finally, we started decent into a cloudy FUE airport. Now, I could be totally wrong, but MYT seem to still have fairly normal looking thin flight deck doors, none of the armoured plating business. At one point on final approach, I'm certain I heard "Windshear, Windshear" in that haunting mechanical voice. You could hear quite a bit of what was going on in the flight deck from where I was sat. I know FUE is know as the windy island and all that, but it was a bit scarey as the plane was thrown around on finals.

Eventually we landed safely and to my surprise got an airbridge complete with open-air section at the top of each bridge, very funky!

Retrun Flight: MYT532
Aircraft: A320 G-GTDK
Scheduled Departure time: 1215
Flight time: 4hrs

All I can say is thank god I wasn't on a package tour! I managed to get to check-in moments before endless MyTravel tour operations coaches turned up at FUE with the dregs of society on board all waiting to check-in too!

The check-in agents were very helpful, spoke little english, but were fine. FUE is a nice new looking modern terminal, very area with a good selection of shops and bars etc. The departure lounge has spectacular views of the runway and apron areas and also has an outdoor viewing terrace with the same views.

I sat waiting in the lounge area for my flight, and then, down she came. G-GTDK fresh from Canada, looking very "hybrid"! Minutes later, MYT flight flights from NCL (A321), GLA (B757, G-PIDS which I thought got a bit wrecked in a landing at POP?) and BRS (A320) and BFS (A321) all turned up to take the lovely coach tours home. I was kinda hoping someone had swapped our aircraft back to EMA for a 321 or a 757, but no. Our aircraft was quite dirty inside, looked desperate for a deep clean. This time we had row 1 ABC, but without paying extra to the Spanish check-in agents! I could see clearly that the crew member in the galley was having problems with ovens and bev makers.

We pushed back about 5-10mins early, the crew did a quick manual demo as we were taking off at the shorter taxi way. As the aircraft was taxiing around, it was making some very dodgy noises. Very off-putting! We did a nice quick take-off and headed north over the top of FUE and away home. The F/O flying us back was fantastic, excellent commentary on routings etc, yet outbound we didn't hear from the front once.

On this return sector, one crew member was feeling unwell (until it came to making her commission on duty free I noticed), so we hardly got any service on the way at all. In fact, they only offered one drinks service on a 4 hour flight on the way home, not great!

Return meal service was the same cardboard box throw away style service, but meal was Sausage & Mash with peas and a dreadful chocolate mousse that would give anyone a migraine as soon as look at it!

After a long and tedious 4hrs again, we approached EMA over the M1 and landed smoothly. After a sharp turn off and what appeared to be a U-turn (I was delerious by this point), we taxied off to some far away stand and waited for buses. Cabin crew then disarmed the doors and decided now was a good opportunity to stand talking amongst themselves again totally ignoring passengers disembarking. Again, not good!

Overall, comfortable flight, but not great service wise. Think I'd like to try another charter airline before offering MYT my money next time!

;)

Original post

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

I read your report on Carsurvey.org earlier, great report :).

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 1,887

Nice report

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 399

Cheers guys.

Tom - I didn't know it was on Carsurvey yet? I can't see it!

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

You can preview reviews when your a member ;).

Its now on the main site anyway :)

Member for

18 years 7 months

Posts: 9

Hello,

Absolutly Beautiful Review. My local Airport is East Midlands, and I used to travel alot on Airtours International. Some of the things you mentioed makes it sound like a few things haven't changed since I last flew with them. Though it's good that you enjoyed certain parts of your flight :)

"(B757, G-PIDS which I thought got a bit wrecked in a landing at POP?)"

That was Boeing 767 G-SJMC (C-GLMC)who left the MyTravel fleet August for Skyservice. Unfortunatly she suffered a very hard landing, and is currently under repair (as far as I know).

Fantastic review :)

Kestrel

Member for

18 years 7 months

Posts: 9

LBA,

He may have ment G-WJAN yep. I have never heard of that accident so thanks for bringing that to light.

Just thought it was G-SJMC because of that accident a few months ago, also at POP.

Cheers, Kestrel :)

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

No probs mate, just assumed he was on about that incident as he referred to a 757 :).

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 399

I think he might have actually meant G-WJAN

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19980101-0

Was barely run in when the incident happened.

Yes, your right Tom. It wasn't G-PIDS, it was G-WJAN. I remember the incident quite clearly as it was unusal for Airtours (as they were then) to be operating POP from BHX, hence it being a 757 via BGR.

Thanks for clearing that up!

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

Pleasure my friend :).

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 920

Great report.

Brings out the fact that flying isn't all excitement - it is actually quite often boring, frustrating, annoying and unnerving.

Excitement comes before a flight, and then it is usually just before a holiday flight for me. The days of excitement in the air seem to be dwindling a little and your views echo mine in many ways.