beautiful valencia
I was super lucky to be working for a company that has a plant in Valencia; it is a great sunny place for a business trip!
The policy of our company was quite strict for european flights: the booking process had to go through American Express and had to be fairly cheap. The latter criteria doesn't really implies flying with any major carriers so low cost Easyjet was my choice here.
I bought the tickets with my corporate credit card and still i was able to use the Easyjet flight to track the status of my bookings.
at london gatwick airport
We arrived at London Gatwick airport by public transport (Tube and train; namely the Southeastern trains).
At the time both terminals were stills used randomly by airlines, whereas now North Terminal is by Low cost and South terminal by legacy carriers.
To reach north terminal you need to take the transfert that only last about 5 min but every 10 min…
There was barely anyone at the checkin counter so we headed directly there. Staff was ok. They offered us a couple of pair of seats to be seated together then handed over to us the boarding passes.
We then went upstairs to the security gates and after scanning your boarding pass, as usual, you get shouted at by security staff on what to do.
North terminal has huge duty free hall and is a bit chaotic, then you need to go through an endless corridor to reach the boarding gate.
Gatwick is organised in a way that at the boarding gate you need to have your passport and boarding pass scanned to enter the waiting area before the jetway (yes at gatwick you almost never board a bus to reach your plane, even a low cost).
Boarding happened in a first come first served basis
on board the A320
Our bird today was an Airbus A320
Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Registration: G-EZTB
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: 9 years
Layout: Y180
The AvGEEK Bit
This A319 is one of the 298 all airbus aircraft fleets of the low cost airline. This route represents the core of the business model of the airline: from big cities to southern holidays destinations.
The AvGEEK Bit
The strange thing is that gatwick has been built with 2 runways however just one is in use, the second shorter one is used as taxiway.
We quickly walked through the jetway to reach the plane, and after usual welcome from the crew, our seats. The usual recorded messages started to shout; telling you to only put the larger bags on the rack above your heads
The seats were a bit clean, the seats as usual - not that confortable, and above 2hours like this flight your back starts to hurt. You can't recline the seats nor do they have an adjustable head pillow.
The crew was professional that day. The safety procedures were explained in the old fashion way by the crew but covered by the same male voice recorded message.
We were taxiing for a short time up until the end of the runway 08R, however we had to wait to take off as we were 4th in the queue.
After take off and the seat belt switched off passed 10,000 feet, the crew quickly started their on board service and i opted for a regular coffee (i know boring of me!) for a few pounds.
As the majority of low cost airlines, Easyjet doesn't offer IFE nor self device entertainment service.
On the pocket you could find the easyjet magasine, with a lot of adds and a few articles. I rushed to the end of the magasine to read through the airline and destination info.
As you can see, I was flying for a last time before Easyjet introduced to charge for seating!
The flight felt long and a bit boring after an hour and so i had to wait a bit more for the descent to begin.
On final to Valencia is a scenic surprise as you fly over the sea and a bit above the old town before landing.
The landing was smooth and taxiing short before we reached our gate and desambark through the jetway.
at valencia airport
Valencia airport is a fairly small airport, a bit old but very functional. It has a few gates operated with jetways and more linked by bus. We arrived at a jetway gate however, like most of the times, the passengers disembarked using stairs then walked to the building terminal. We passed through passport control ver very fast; the officers didn't really check our passports.
