Review of Ryanair flight Budapest → Bournemouth in Economy

It's the End of the Road!

Flight Four out of Four. The final run in this marathon three day trip covering Poland, Italy and Hungary. Whilst I don't get a lot of time in Budapest, I will be back in mid May 2022 for a day here to see the sights, however I did get to visit a really nice hotel in Budapest, so I can recall this Airport Hotel for those who might find it interesting for their own stays here!

Before I carry on, here is a recap for those who may benefit:

Right, let's begin!

The Budapest Airport Hotel

Located just off the Budapest Airport, the hotel- which is named after the Airport is a Four Star accommodation that can be booked as cheap as £70 or 31,042HUF per night. The hotel can be reached in about 20 minutes with 200E Bus and a short walk, it can be done in a 40-45 minute walk from the Terminal (which wasn't a viable option just before midnight) or a drive in a car for 7-10 minutes.

The Hotel is marketed as a Four Star Hotel, its price sounds quite reasonable to me, a British resident, but it is probably a luxurious fee for someone from Hungary or the nearby Eastern European countries. You can book a Shuttle with the Hotel, but I opted for my own transport when I arrived as it was extremely late. My flight the next day was at 11:15am, so I had plenty of time to rest up and enjoy a breakfast, which I had included in my booking.

The room I was allocated was quite nice, if I had to stay here a bit longer, I would quite happily use this for a base.

Breakfast was offered as a buffet which featured the usual combination of cold items, breads, cooked items, hot drinks with juice options and for a personal bonus- a pancake machine! It was nice they offered a selection of Hungarian products and offerings for Western European travellers.

My selection from the buffet for a slap up start to my day! I just couldn't refuse the pancakes!

Despite a solid stay, I did have an embarrassing moment when I was given my original room to find it already occupied- disturbing some poor Hungarian bloke, so I went back to the desk and asked for a new room, which the embarrassed check in clerk granted ASAP. I'm surprised their system didn't flag that the room I was intended for was already given out.

I had booked a 09:00am ride to the Airport Terminal from the Hotel's Airport Shuttle. I arrived at the Airport swiftly after checking out. I would recommend the place overall, and my mishap that evening (or early morning) is very much an ultra rare occurrence.

Spotting at Budapest Airport

After getting airside, and visiting the Budapest Airport's Hard Rock Cafe ROCK SHOP outlet, I wondered around getting some aircraft photos, because why not? I wish I had a little bit more time to get a visit to the Budapest Airport Observation deck, but I can do that next time if I can.

Budapest Airport is one of few Airports in Europe that has a dedicated ROCK SHOP outlet from the Hard Rock Cafe.

As luck would have it, I got to see some golden history- The MALEV Hungarian Airlines Tupelov TU-154 in the 1960s MALEV livery! This is not just any old TU-154, this aircraft was the very first TU-154 delivered to MALEV! HA-LCA. After years of storage for airport use, the Aeropark (an aviation museum) restored the Tupelov and it is proudly displayed around Budapest Airport for use as a training aircraft for ground crews and maintenance. IT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL!

Another unusual find was a Boeing 737-800 (4X-EKM) of El Al Israeli Airlines, which still wore the basic UP! Livery, a former low cost airline spin-off of EL AL. It will likely be painted into the standard livery soon.

On a more modern note was this Helevetic Airways flight operating for SWISS, it was operated by an Embraer E2-190 "Profit Hunter", the family type hasn't been selling too well with the Airbus A220 (Bombardier C-Series) having chewed up most of the market. Widero, Helevetic Airways and KLM Cityhopper seem to be the Embraer hold outs in Europe. I'm sure more orders will eventually come from the US Regional airlines as their ERJ-family fleets get older.

There was some more usual traffic going on including a LOT Polish Airlines ERJ-170, Wizzair Airbus & Ryanair Boeing 737-800 as well as a Lufthansa Airbus A320 in from Frankfurt.

Ryanair FR3316 (EI-EKD)

The aircraft this particular day would be operated by Boeing 737-8AS(WL) EI-EKD, a plane that was based at Bournemouth Hurn Airport, my local airport and where my trip began some 48 hours earlier. Normally the Budapest service from Bournemouth is operated by a Budapest based Buzz! aircraft, so this made for an interesting change.

Seated in 27F, I was at the back of the 737- so it was a rear board, allowing for this rather nice view looking down at the Boeing 737.

It wasn't easy getting pictures out of the window at first, as it was raining at Budapest Airport, so the windows wouldn't clear until we were rushing down the runway for take off.

The cabin on this Ryanair Boeing 737 was in the old design which had been in use since the Boeing 737-800 was introduced in 1998. Whilst most are sporting the newer Boeing Sky Interior or the old cabin with newer seating- this one was the whole retro hog!

The flight left on time, and as it wasn't too busy at Budapest Airport, we quickly taxied over to the Runway and with in no time at all it was full throttle, thunder down the runway and up, up, up into the skies!

It took a while to get through the clouds, but once we had cut through- it was a smooth straight sail across Europe towards Southern England. I even saw a couple of aircraft pass us at altitude, including an Emirates Boeing 777 & Etihad Boeing 787. I even snapped on aircraft buzzing past in the other direction.

Fancying a Ryanair feed- I opted for the 10EUR (£8.40) meal deal which I opted for the ham and cheese Panini with a pringles can alongside a can of cola. I know the Panini don't look that appealing, but I'm flying a £15 Ryanair flight- I don't personally expect luxury.

About twenty minutes passed and with a bit more time on the flight, I opted to ask the crew if I could buy a cup of tea………
Yes, I know fully well how cliché I'm sounding right now!

As we passed the coast of Germany/Netherlands and began our route and descent towards Bournemouth, I got a good view through some scattered clouds as we passed over the shores.

Passing over the North Sea and parts of the English Channel, we were skirting along the South of England. Heading in from the direction of Southampton and Poole, so it would give me some interesting views of my local area from above!

Need I suggest more than to look at this phone snap I took as we did a quick turn over the docks of Southampton!

On the finals into Bournemouth the flight and decent weather allowed for an equally nice view of Poole Quay and the nearby Bournemouth Beaches.

It was a windy afternoon arrival, down by the coast- there isn't much slowing the wind down if it comes off the sea, which was happening on this instance, it did allow for some interesting film footage for the in-flight review I did, despite wondering if this would lead to a missed approach, the skilled pilots on this flight landed our plane onto the Runway first time!

BOH is a small airport, and from our Easterly arrival, we taxied off the runway and within 60 seconds of leaving the runway we were parked up on the stand, ready to start disembarking the Boeing 737.

As with the boarding, I disembarked via the rear stair case, which offered some good views again looking down the fuselage, this time with better weather conditions. Wanting to grab some pictures and avoid the main rush of people desperate to remove themselves from the aircraft, I held back until I was one of the last few passengers off. I thought I'd grab a final cabin shot, with the older seats being phased out of Ryanair- you never know when the last time you fly with an older cabin will be.

Leaving the plane and heading into INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS meant I was at the back of a que of around 160-170 passengers from my flight. There were four passport control employees processing arrivals and they did an efficient job as it took about 15 minutes to get down to me. I went to the lady who was doing the checks, she checked my passport and off I went for a few feet before being stopped by a Police Officer from the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Unit, nothing to worry about- they were doing spot checks on random passengers and I was stopped (likely being a young man travelling alone), I took the time to happily answer the mans questions and in no longer than 2 minutes I was on my way.

Overall a really amazing adventure and all four flights cost me less than £45 on the base fares alone, a price that I really don't think I could have done much better with! I can't wait to get my wheels up again in the not too distant future!