Red-eye flight, in the snow
Hello and welcome to my flight report of my returning flight from Belfast to London and my first flight of 2026. But it was not off to a good start.
The aircraft swap
This flight was booked at an unusual time for 2 reasons,
1. It gave me nearly the whole day in Belfast
2. (The main reason) it was supposed to be operated with one of easyJet’s 17 Airbus a321 neos that don’t usually fly to Belfast and I had wanted to fly on the a321 neos since they were first introduced so I had to book this flight.
But 2 months before the flight I got this email
I didn’t bother to change the flight because it had only been changed to an a320 and reason 1. Was not effected.
The flight (and delay)
So I was still looking forward to a day of sightseeing in Belfast with my Dad and maybe getting to my home in London before midnight, until I saw that outside the weather looked like this,
So a delay was inevitable but I was still able to do some Sightseeing (see tourism bonus) and the delay was only an hour.
I arrived at Belfast International airport about an hour and 50 minutes before departure and there were no delays and the que was shorter than average (that’s was I saw as I went through the fast track lane)
One must have Tayto Crisps when in Northern Ireland (but they are £3 in Starbucks Belfast International Airport)
We started boarding about 20 minutes behind schedule and boarded quickly, although none of one cared about Speedy Boarding. The aircraft was parked on a stand near the terminal next to a Cavok Air antonov an 12, something I don’t see often but seem to be quite common in Belfast International Airport.
Once everyone had boarded, our aircraft was de-iced which was interesting to see. We had a short taxi to the runway and took off in a westerly direction over lough Neagh before turning round towards England.
Once we reached cruising altitude, the cabin crew preformed their buy on board service. I was quite hungry so I ordered the Mediterranean snack box and a sprite for £8 it contained some hummus, red pepper dip, olives and some crackers and it tasted very good.
I didn’t take many pictures due to poor photo conditions but landing was smooth and I took this photo of some parked planes at Gatwick.
Tui and Jet2 Boeing 737s and a wizzair airbus a321
We parked at a remote stand a the north terminal and had a short bus journey to baggage reclaim. Then we went straight to the shuttle to the sout terminal and train station, when we got to the train station everyone seemed to start running to the train and on to a Gatwick express train. I waited for the 24 hour Thameslink service because I refused to pay £40 to sit on an ironing board. I got home Just before 3AM.
Thank you for rea
