First Choice Airways Arrecife to Manchester part2

By: wilag - 2nd May 2005 at 20:43 - Edited 2nd October 2019 at 11:40

Flight No FCA 2411
Manchester to Arrecife
Boeing 757-200
G-OOOY (again)
Dept 14/4/05 13:20
Flight time 3h 35 hours

Well after a fantastic week of relaxation it was time to head back to old blighty, Arrived at the Airport and joined a large queue, and thankfully the cleaners rant had finished and the place was near normal again.
Checked in and got seat 27A and B, another 4 hours sat in a cramped seat again great. Passed through security and set off all the bells and whistles, was my belt. Proceeded to the gate area, was like Old Trafford on match day, this is where you can’t be bothered waiting and just want to get home.
12:30 on the dot and G-OOOY planted its Dunlop’s on teraferma, least we would be going on time.
Boarding commenced at 12:50 as we were bused to our ship.

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Took ours seats and were greeted by the happy crew and was informed by the pointy end that flight time would be a tad over 3h30. Doors shut and engines wound into life we made our way to 03. In front was an Excel 737-800 also on it’s way to Manchester, with him out the way we lined up and commenced our take off, gees did we get kicked back in our seats 757 style, slightly long roll out but we were soon airborne with a hard right hand turn to avoid the high ground.

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Time to relax now and enjoy the rest of the flight.

First hour passed and once over Portugal we hit some light chop, this then progressed to mild chop, eventually after 10 minutes of this they switched on the seat belt sign but not once did the crew give a PA to explain why it was so bad as they were a few faces which weren’t happy bunny’s including the lady next to Mrs. Wilag, was quiet funny really.
Anyway after being chucked around for 45 minutes it finally stopped somewhere near Northern Spain. Time ticked on and around 30 minuets from out landing time the rollers wound back as we commenced our decent into Manchester and soon we were over Stockport as we drifted on the approach of 24R.
A large thump then back in the air and finally back down we were home, great I thought back to normality and the rush hour on the M60, also as we turned of the active who should be touching down?, the Excel 737 that left before us.

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Impression

Enjoyed FCA but not as good as I expected as reviews had shown them better then Thomson/Britannia, but I beg to differ, seating was very cramped and the food was poor.
Overall I would give them 5/10.

Hope you enjoyed this report, I am open to questions.

Rgds

Andy

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