My first report will cover a route I commonly follow to visit my family. In the near future I plan to cover all carriers that fly from the Netherlands to Barcelona, and perhaps attempt to draw a comparison.
Departure Airport
The trip begins at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona - El Prat airport, terminal T2 as usual for low cost carriers. I arrive by car, however the airport is very accessible by public transport.
I recommend reaching the airport by the "Rodalies" R2N line that connects BCN T2 and Barcelona Sants, the main rail hub of the city. It is easily reachable from anywhere in Barcelona province, and Rodalies services do accept the metropolitan transport card. Even more, from Barcelona it is only considered 1 zone, so if you have a pass that covers 1 zone trips, you can just hop in normally. Furthermore, it is usually not as crowded as the other options. To reach T1 from the train station, you can go to T2 through the tunnel, go downstairs and take the free shuttle bus, which takes around 20 minutes.
If you prefer taxis due to personal abilities, baggage or any other reason, make sure it's one of the yellow and black official ones. They also charge a special airport fee, though.
Despite the large crowd, security is cleared in minutes, also being stopped for a random check. After a mandatory duty free, I arrive at the departures area. It is a bit crowded, which is understandable at a peak hour right after autumn break. There are also large monitors showing connections, including those from terminal T1.
Due to its location, T2 only has a good view of runway 25R which is nearly always used for arrivals. 25L is used for departures and 02 for late night arrivals due to noise regulations. The better spots for landings are towards gates R and M. The whole terminal has glass windows which allows good visibility for spotters, though the variety is not the best, due to LCCs taking over the terminal with their 737s and A320s.
Back to our gate, our ride today is EI-EKH, a 737-800 delivered in 2010. It is the same aircraft that brought me here a couple of days ago. In the background, you may see a Transavia 737 that is flying the same route to EIN.
Flight
I take my seat at 23F, which has a good view of the wing and its control surfaces. The photo of the seat is taken after arrival, since my neighbours had already taken their places. I personally prefer this type of seat as they're more comfortable than their "modern-looking" ones. However, it is still as ugly as Ryanair gets.
The seat is no luxury, but at least is comfortable enough for intra-European flights, and the legroom is actually better than what some legacy carriers offer in short haul routes, though this has never inconvenienced me. As reference for the pictures, I stand at around 170 cm (5'6'').
Boarding closes around the scheduled departure time. Load factor of almost 100%, as expected of low cost carriers.
After a small wait, we push back and start the infamous BCN T2 taxi at 14:35.
The rarest sight of the day, an MD-87 of defunct charter Pronair.
We finally reach the runway after close to 30 minutes of taxi. I wonder if Ryanair domestic flights from BCN spend more time taxiing than flying… We take off and turn towards the Mediterranean.
I seldom eat at airport restaurants, even less in planes without complimentary meals; however I decided to test Ryanair's inflight service for the sake of the report. I order their "Rich & Saucy" beef lasagna, which costs 6,50€. Not the worst for this airline, however they only accept Mastercard, Visa and American Express, and the terminals sometimes just decide not to work. Eventually, I get my meal, within an acceptable 12 minutes.
Surprisingly, there is some flavour in there. It's far from a homemade or restaurant lasagna, but up to most airline standards. Around the same quality as Auchan supermarket frozen lasagnas, for a reference.
The highlight of Spain-Central Europe flights for me is how breathtaking the Alps look every time.
As we begin our descent, the strong Dutch winds can be felt around the aircraft. Breaking through the clouds, we can see a bit of Germany and the Netherlands…
The landing is pretty good, as expected of an airline whose pilots perform the maneuver countless times a day.
We taxi to our gate, making a loop through the runway as is usual in EIN…
I leave through the back door and take the chance to snap some pictures from the tarmac.
Arrival Airport
Being on the smaller side and with so many passengers, EIN tends to get crowded. However, I only have my backpack so I leave with no issues.
EIN is pretty accessible by car, public transport and bicycles, being in the Netherlands. I usually take the shuttle bus to the central station, which takes around 40 minutes. Eindhoven Centraal has frequent services to Utrecht, from where you can reach Holland easily and anywhere else in the country within a couple hours.
Hi Makazu, thank you for sharing your first FR with us!
I found these seats to have almost no padding. I agree the seat pitch is not that much different than what is on most “full-service” carriers.
Overall, looks to be a pretty good flight with an on time performance (most important for FR). The lasagna is at least a unique offering for BOB, which are typically always some sort of sandwich on LCCs and the price, while high, is competitive with airport prices.
EIN doesn’t have any jetbridges? I guess with mainly only LCC operators, there is little need of they aren’t willing to pay to use them?
Thanks again for sharing and welcome to the site!
The flight did feel simply alright, not an experience to remember either positively or negatively. Regarding EIN, I don't recall seeing a jetbridge in any of my flights from there. Gates in levels higher than ground floor also lead you downstairs when boarding. But I don't think it's an issue as you mention, most LCCs and leisure travelers don't really need that!
Hi there thanks for sharing your first report here with us and welcome!
The lasagne looks pretty decent for €6,50. It’s always nice to have hot options for purchase whereas some LCCs only have snacks or cold options.
It is true that Ryanair have better legroom than a lot of legacy carriers in Europe. It is pretty incredible how FR maintain a reasonable 30” seat pitch at such a high cabin density while legacy carriers like Iberia have mostly knee-crushing 28” pitch throughout much of the Economy cabin on narrow-bodies.
Sorry to hear you got sick on the plane! Even though wearing masks is still required to/from Spain, many non-Spanish carriers don’t seem to enforce it.
Hope you feel better soon and welcome again!
I still remember my surprise when I flew TAP for a better flight experience just to have even less legroom than infamous Ryanair! Even if the rest of the service was way better, I can't forget that part.
Perhaps Ryanair has better legroom because they cannot legally add more rows of seats, while legacy carriers with Business and Premium seats take more space while staying under the limit?
And yes, it's clear that Spanish carriers strongly enforce face masks while most other airlines don't seem to care...
Hi Makazu,
That's been quite a travel getting from Eindhoven to Groningen by public transport. Must have taken you as long as the entirity of your flight I reckon? Comparing all cariers on the legs from Barcelona to the Netherlands in the future? I guess you've taken the worst one to start and it should improve from now on ;).
I just wish the airports of Barcelona and Madrid would both update their older terminals as both of them are not really pleasant to travel from.
Thanks for sharing the report though!
That's right, the trip between the airport and my home takes longer than the flight itself. And in some cases it's also more expensive!
And I completely agree that Spanish airports feel a bit outdated, especially comparing them with the Dutch ones; which have modern security controls, well mantained website and better looks, among other things...