Glasgow to Berlin via Stansted with Air Berlin

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

18 years 1 month

Posts: 550

23rd March 2006

A very early rise from my home in Fife, left early to avoid the rush on the M8 motorway and arrived in good time to park up at the NCP Long-Stay car park at Glasgow, pre-booked and paid for, short trip to the terminal and we (party of 4) were first to check-in for our flight to Berlin via Stansted with Air Berlin. All our luggage was checked all the way through and Boarding Cards were issued, so it was on to the departure hall, being so early meant I could get some pics, nice and sunny and I planted myself near the BA departure hall, good views all-round, and the glass wasnt too bad for taking pics through.

http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/4120/zz8jk.jpg
N12116 arriving from Newark

No hassle from Security about taking pics, nice to get some from different places rather than the normal places round the perimeter, no real surprise that my flight was going to be on a Fokker 100, my first ever flight on one as well, took a pic of it as it arrived from Stansted.

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/3815/zzz0qh.jpg
D-AGPE arriving to take me to Stansted and onwards to Berlin-Tegel

The flight boarded just a little late, looked a bit less than 50% full in my opinion, the seating layout on the Fokker is 3-2, my party had a row of 3 with me having 2 seats, nice leather seats and also a very good seat pitch, on our way to the EOR I took some more pics, glass on the Fokker was pretty clean and not scratched, noticed the Air Scotland 757 parked up, and snapped one of it ;)

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/6988/yy6ys.jpg
SX-BLW of Air Scotland

Next it was past the ATC tower, last time I photographed it was last June from an Emirates A330, but this time the weather was a lot nicer.

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/143/xx1oo.jpg

Into the flight it was time to relax and enjoy the flight to Stansted, took some pics of trails going past but none were any good, had a beer(2euro) with my sandwich on the flight, and then sat back and enjoyed the rest of the flight, got a good view of Stansted on our way round for lining up for the approach, nice and sunny as well :cool:

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/7517/vvv2yt.jpg
Nice Fokker 100 shadow!!

Parked up at the terminal and it was upstairs into the lounge, no time to go to the main terminal, we would be going back onto the same aircraft shortly, so, it was out with the camera, first aircraft into my viewfinder was a Martinair Cargo MD11, nice....!!

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/2188/ww0ii.jpg
PH-MCU

Nice area to be parked in, took about a dozen pics and then it was back onto D-AGPE, big bummer next.....we had row 21 as our seats, last row on the plane, no windows!! Flight was full so no chance of moving, so it was on with the MP3 player until our arrival at Tegel.

Arrived at Tegel just a wee bit late, took one photo as we waited for our bags, here it is..

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/4061/rrr8lw.jpg
D-AGPE again !!

Got a glimpse of some of the aircraft parked up, mostly German!! There was a Niki A320 which would have been nice to photograph, but ........ :confused:

Passport etc was a breeze, then, it was time to get into the city, found an information desk and purchased a "72 hour Welcome Card", with this you can use Berlin transport for 72 hours, train, tram
, bus and underground, also, we had two kids with us , they travel free with an adult , so that meant 44 Euros for 4 people to travel all over Berlin including to and from the airport, so, walked passed some other visitors trying to get to grips with the ticket machine at the bus stop and onto the TXL Express bus for a 30 min trip to Alexanderplatz, if you want to use the Berlin transport then a word of warning, after you purchase your ticket, it needs verified, so as you step on board the bus there is a wee box, poke your ticket in it and the date and time are stamped on it, it is then valid in this case for 72 hours, the transport system is based on trust but there are very regular checks, the inspectors go ballistic if you havent validated your ticket as I found out on a previous visit to Berlin.

26th March
Back to Tegel, only a few hours left on our tickets for transport, weather was really really bad, heavy rain, the Spectators area was shut, big bummer, to find it look for the old Tram that's been converted into a Diner, its right beside there, anyway, found a spot not far from there, out of the rain but glass in the way.

Highlight was the Mongolian Airlines A310, managed to not photograph a lot that was on the ramp though, I reckon the viewing area is well woth a visit just pick a day when its not raining!

Heres some of my pics

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/5323/111110re.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/7308/22227mz.jpg
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/9133/33336il.jpg

Checked in at the Air Berlin counter, quick bit to eat the back to the counter were you are dircted into your lounge its directly behind the desk, seemed to be a lot of queuing to do and to be honest I wasnt impressed with the lounge, an awful lot of people in a small space, this time we were going on a Boeing 737-700, D-ABBN, before boarding I mangaged some pics, not too good at all though, then it was onto the aircraft, took a couple of pics from the aircraft, forgot to mention as well, we were now about 45 mins leaving :o

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/4432/5555rk.jpg
Taken from my window seat on D-ABBN

Anyway back to the flight , plane was full, uneventful trip, the 737's seats have a shorter pitch than the Fokkers but are comfy all the same, still nice and bright by the time Stansted arrived, and got this pic of the airport on arrival.

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/7589/558od.jpg

Disembarked D-ABBN, onto the train to the terminal, through passport control, back through security, then a short walk back to the lounge, straight back onto D-ABBN, flight was about half full, not bad for a Sunday night.

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/9434/57kf.jpg

Nice winglet :cool:

Flight was uneventful, we were about 30-40 mins late, got some pics as we taxied to the terminal, here's one outside the Loganair maintenance area

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4872/55557pu.jpg

Good trip, but.....Tegel is crap to use as a passenger, if you can tolerate a lot of queuing then your ok, would recomend Air Berlin, nice aircraft, good service, would also recomend Berlin as a city to visit, I'll be going back for sure.

Original post

Member for

18 years 1 month

Posts: 2,098

Very concise report, Robert. Possibly going to be visiting TXL with work soon myself.

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

Very interesting, I'm off to Berlin for the day on Tuesday, but using SXF and not TXL. First time outside of the UK and Ireland (barring my US trip last week) for over a year so looking forward to it!

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 1,614

Hope you enjoyed Berlin - I had a fantastic (if a little cold) trip there last year. What's the onboard service on Air Berlin like - I gather they are a full service airline?

Great report and pictures as well.

Member for

18 years 1 month

Posts: 550

Very interesting, I'm off to Berlin for the day on Tuesday, but using SXF and not TXL. First time outside of the UK and Ireland (barring my US trip last week) for over a year so looking forward to it!

I've used SXF before, here's a link to my website with some stuff on it

http://www.egphphotos.co.uk/berlin2005.htm

regards

Robert

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

Excellent report, if you had flown on D-ABBN a couple of months earlier it would have had the Dreamliner scheme!

Member for

20 years 1 month

Posts: 4,255

Excellent report, if you had flown on D-ABBN a couple of months earlier it would have had the Dreamliner scheme!

And i was lucky enough to have it in that scheme!

Great report and photos there!

Member for

18 years 6 months

Posts: 1,289

Nice report there! :)

Member for

20 years 11 months

Posts: 12,842

Very good report with some great shots