Hello and welcome onboard this new report, back 11 month ago during the spring 2017 for this report heading to the Mediterranean sun of Malta for a 4 day weekend with friends.
Routing construction:
In the early days of February two friends of mine tell me that they booked Ryanair flights to Malta for a long week end between March and April the day before and if I want to come I will be welcome.
Back home, when I looked the Ryanair website I found the same flight at 65€ for a round trip. Jackpot!
Ryanair launched operations in Toulouse airport during November 2016. Eight routes have been launched with some new destinations but no aircraft has been based in Blagnac.
Malta’s flight is operated every Thursday and Sunday all the year perfect for a spring week-end on the sun!
So the routing
Thu 30/03/2017 FR3043 TLS-MLA Ryanair B737-800 it’s now.
Sun 02/04/2017 FR3044 MLA-TLS Ryanair B737-800 Already published in the french part of the website no translation scheduled.
I’m a bit curious about this flight; it will be my first flight on the Irish low-cost carrier for a more than 2 hours journey.
I’m little bit surprise but English database is quite poor for Malta airport with just a two reports written by TCPDavid last year. You can the flight MLA-TLS in French database reported by Ducourf on Air France in 2012.
This line will be operated by the French national carrier during all the August month with a 3 weekly flight.
The journey start on the Thursday morning one friend drops the entire group at the airport just before going to work. Since the Brussels attacks the drop off lane is closed, unfortunately it's still the case today.
My teammates went to the ATM to take some cash; I've few minutes to take the pictures of the FIDS sorry for the blurred pictures taken with my cellphone.
We go to the security checks; this formality is passed in a few minutes.
Airside we take a short rest on a coffee with a nice view on the runaways, so I can take few pictures of the Blagnac traffic. An Air France Airbus A319 during is taxi before taking off to Lyon.
An A321 who comes from the capital, there are many flights to Paris everyday
The regional feeder Hop! fly to Marseille with a brand new ATR 72-600.
A Crj 1000 is used by Air Nostrum for Madrid flights.
The main activity on this Thursday morning is performed by Airbus. Beluga's freighter flights, but also flight test aircrafts like the A380 MSN 1 used as test bed for the A350-1000 engine or the first A350-1000 ready to perform a new test flight with the Pyrenees in background.
Also another Airbus flight, an A319 of Germania is used to perform 2 daily flights Toulouse-Hambourg Filkenwerder from Monday to Friday to carry the Airbus employees between the two sites.
After this short spotting session it's time to catch our aircraft before that we need to pass through an identity check another mandatory procedure added after the Paris attack. This new formality makes us lose twenty minutes especially because of passenger's late flight Iberia for Madrid who cut the queue at the airport staff invitation. That a good idea for them, they don't miss the flight. But now we are not far from being late.
After these 20 minutes spend in the line we finally ends up at our gate like our plane of the day. Unfortunately we reach the pre-boarding at is end so our precious hand luggage will be put in the hold thankfully for free.
Digital boarding pass luckily I've got a window seat for free.
A general view of the gate and the pre-boarding area. The terminal is comfortable but not really spotter friendly because of the sun protection on the window.
Ground operations in progress.
We've got the green light from the ground coordinator. Let's join EI-EBX. Bravo X-ray is an 8 years old Boeing 737-800. We climb onto the aircraft with the stair included on the Boeing fuselage. There is also a mobile stair at the rear left door.
Like all the 737NG powered by the CFM 56.
After a smiling welcome, I go to my seat 09F, the seats look used and the design is old fashioned.
The pitch is so so for my size (1,72m).
There is no pocket at the rear of the seat, so you can find the safety procedures at the rear of the front seat. If you want you can ask the buy on board catalog at the cabin crew.
Outside the refueling and luggage loading are in progress.
These operations drag on but the passenger boarding is quickly completed.
Outside I can enjoy the view on the airfield, the first A350 start few airfield pattern for test purposes.
You can also see this brand new ATR 72 of Avianca during pre-delivery flight.
There is also common aircraft like this EasyJet A320 for Paris Orly or this BA for Heathrow.
Finally the door are closed we can push back with a 20 minutes delay.
We taxi to the runway 14L and we taking off in the process with nice view on the Airbus facilities and Toulouse suburbs.
On the over side of the aircraft, where my friends are located, you can have a nice view on Toulouse city.
Back to my side we saw the Francazal airport an old French air force airfield.
Far away the Pyrenees are still white. No clouds just a little mist, you can see all the Pyrenees range. Very nice!
We leave the Garonne countryside for the Tarn district with the hills of "La montagne noire" just few minutes after we flew over the city of Castres and its airport.
We reach the cruise level, outside there is no sign of clouds so we can see both of Oriental Pyrenees and Cataluña coast.
We leave France near the pond of Thau with a nice view on the city of Agde.
During our Mediterranean crossing we saw few Cirrocumulus.
Fifty minutes after leaving the french coast we flyover Sardinia near Oristano city.
After twenty minutes the flyover ends with a nice view on Cagliari.
Unfortunately my dirty window starts to be covered with frost.
For information the day path.
Inside the fuselage the cabin crews follow their sales with a non-stop move of the trolley and cabin announcement to sell food/beverage/parfum/lotery tickets and so on. Passengers stay calm and quiet. Lack of luck for the crew they don't want to spend a penny on board. The cabin manager loses his smile as the flight continues.
The overhead panel is really hold school. Another specificity of Ryanair 737 the life vest are on the overhead.
Air to sea with a big cargo.
Finally the Maltese coast are on sight or descent is already started. These pictures were took by my friend on the left hand of the aircraft. The first Island is Gozo.
Just after the little Comino.
End finally the biggest Malta with a highlight on the blue grotto.
Our aircraft overpast the Maltese islands to catch the approach path of Luqa airport.
We flew over the Malta's harbor.
Then the village of Il-Brolli and the few fields surrounding the city.
We finally land on the Maltese ground in a big boom landing. Few seconds after a thunderous applause from a large part of the passengers celebrate our arrival. That reminds me the 90's charter flights. On the opposite side an LH A321 run on the taxiway.
Most of the time Luqa tarmac is a kind of wonderland for an avgeek. Today we can see an A319 of Armenian Government and a Global 5000 of the Luftwaffe you can also see the A320 with Air Malta retro jet livery.
We leave the runaway and start the taxi to our parking slot, during the taxi we can see a 757 of DHL just after we've got a view on the hangars of Malta Air Forces with, in front a modern Agusta AW139 and a Jurassic Alouette III.
Unfortunately for us we are parked on the cargo apron.
This gave us a right for a cobus ride nicely painted on Malta's monument colors.
After a cold salutation from the crew we get down the stairs, just a front of us we saw an A320 of Alpha star registered in Saudi Arabia.
Last view on our daily bird.
After a short bus ride we stop in front of the terminal, last picture of the ramp.
No control for Schengen flights. We go directly to the luggage delivery. The waiting will be around 10 minutes.
Few meters by feet and we land on the ground side where you can find an Car rentals desks there is also some shops and coffees and a Malta public transport sales counter.
We will take a 7 days pass for just 21 € before going to the bus stop for La Valetta located in front of the main exit. Good point for Malta's transport they go on the 4 corners of the island. Unfortunately the frequency is very low on all the line and the bus really tiny. There is also no respect for the timetable, not very efficient for the airport lines.
Here is the end of the report I hope you enjoy it. Have nice flights !
What a beautifully photographed FR! To be honest, I'm never too excited to read a report on Ryanair, lol, but the beautiful planespotting and aerial pics made it a great report! TLS is great for all the Airbus activity--love the Beluga and A350 shots. The Beluga is so cute ^^
The new-ish Hall D at Blagnac is really nice architecturally, but you're right that it's not spotter-friendly like the older terminals. This is the first report I've seen with ground boarding at TLS--I wonder if it's because Ryanair is too cheap to pay for gate access.
As far as the flight itself, as you say, no surprises here--it's a true LCC. The cabin is worn and ugly with all that yellow, but it gets you from point A to B at a good price. I like your comparison of the price with the price of tolls and petrol to get from Toulouse to the beach. For sure, if you can go to Malta for the same price and less hassle, it's definitely worth it! This is a really good way of thinking about it.
Thank you for sharing!
Hi Kevin I’m glad you enjoy this report, for me it’s juste à good translation exercice to practice english language. I hope it was understandable. We are really lucky in Toulouse with all these new Airbus birds flying around. Ground boarding in Toulouse is common in Toulouse, and it’s always the case when you fly with Easyjet, Ryanair or Volotea.
Flying to Malta with that prince was really a gift.
Thanks for sharing my report on social networks ;-) Bye!