Hey guys! My name is João, I'm from Brazil and I'm a planespotter at POA (Porto Alegre Airport). This is my first flight report here, so please let me know if I did something wrong (and sorry for my bad English!). I put my watermark on the photos, but I hope this is not a problem! :) So, let's go:
I always wanted to fly with Avianca Brasil (O6/ONE). In December I had the chance, because I went to São Paulo/Guarulhos (GRU) Airport for planespotting. The cheaper airline was Avianca. I bought a ticket for O66127 POA-GRU flight. The scheduled departure was at 10:25AM and the scheduled arrival was at 12:10PM on December 11th.
And finally the great day arrived! I woke up early to go to the airport for photographing some airplanes. I made the online check-in at home. Everything worked well, but Avianca's website has not a good design.
POA's terminal 1 is nice. It is clean and has lots of stores and restaurants. But it's all very expensive there. There are many (expensive) parking options too.
After some planespotting, it was time to go to the boarding hall. I passed through some fast security procedures and I was there. When I got there my flight was already boarding! I was going to fly on PR-OCH.
Avianca has a different way to board: firstly the priority passengers, then the regular ones - firstly the passengers from the back rows and then from the front rows. I think this is nice, because it is more organized.
I got on the plane and I was recieved with a beautiful smile of the flight attendant. I left my things on my seat and then went to the galley to talk with the other flight attendants while the aircraft was still being boarded.
When the boarding ended I came back to my seat, that was very comfortable (leather) and with an awesome pitch. I tried to recline it, but I just couldn't. Besides this, it was all perfect. Here are some pics of PR-OCT's interior (the same as OCH's), with my old and stronger watermark. Sorry!
The flight was full, with 162/162 of the seats occupied. Later, the pushback started and the engines were started. Some of the crew speechs were made by recorded voices… I just don't like it, I prefer real voices making it. But anyway: the safety procedures were shown on our individual screens, once in Portuguese and another in English.
We taxied to runway 29. Waited for two landings and two take-offs and then got on the runway. We made a backtrack and then aligned. At 10:59AM the Captain applied full power and then we were airborn! :) Our cruise altitude was going to be be 35000ft.
We made a left turn and finally the AVOD was turned on to the passengers. I was going to check the options, but this search didn't last too much. I found the complete Abbey Road album! Who knows me knows that I just love the Beatles, so in the same time I started to listen to the Fab Four's penultimate album.
Some minutes later, the crew started to serve drinks and food. The drink options were Pepsi, guaraná (a kind of Brazilian soda), juice and water. I chose Pepsi.
The only food option was a hot sandwich with provolone cheese and ham. The sandwich was really hot! That's nice, because we are not used to see this here on Brazilian airlines. But there was a problem: I don't like cheese nor ham. I was very hungry, so I tried the sandwich - and it was amazing! So I asked the flight attendant for two more sandwiches and another glass of Pepsi. :D
When I finished to listen Abbey Road, I tried to see the other AVOD options. There were lots of musics, video clips, sitcoms and news from the day before. The touchscreen sensitivity was very nice, too. The only problem was the earphone - the audio quality was not the best.
Soon we started our descent. The Captain gave us some informations and notified us that the ATC asked for us to orbit over Santos region, so our flight was going to take some 7 or 10 minutes more.
A few time later we were on final for landing on runway 27L at GRU. We made a very soft touchdown at 12:24PM. We soon left the runway and taxied to our position. Engines turned off and a very quick unloading.
Here's a photo of part of the nice crew!
GRU Airport is much bigger than POA, it's amazing. But the signs to the security procedures were very, very confusing. Now GRU is recieving many improvements, and it's way better than before.
After arriving, I stayed in the airport for more 20 hours of planespotting! :D
I really like Avianca in Brasil but I still prefer Azul.
The cabin is very nice, those new planes seem confortable. It's a very good alternative to the uncomfortable TAM.
You could add, if you want, some pictures of the spotting in POA and GRU. Not too much but a little bit, there's some nice airlines and planes coming to GRU.
Obrigado ;)
Obrigado! :D I prefer Azul too.
I'll try to post a flight report with AZU soon :) I'll add some planespotting photos on the flight report ASAP!
Thanks for sharing your first report here! The pics are great! Avianca Brasil looks like a very nice option for domestic flights. It's certainly better service than on U.S. domestic flights, which can be much longer. Next time, take the wrapper off the sandwich so we can see it :-) I'm assuming you got permission from the crew to post their picture?
After arriving, I stayed in the airport for more 20 hours of planespotting! :D
- Awesome! You can post the pics as a bonus at the end of the report. We would love to see them! I know I would :-)
Awesome! Looking forward to seeing the spotting pics. I bet they're beautiful!
Pics of crew are always cool, just make sure you write in the reports in the future that you post pics with permission. Thanks!
Hi Kévin! Yes, I always ask to take some photos of the crew during and after my flights.
As soon as possible, I'll post the bonus pics, haha. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing this excellent first FR and welcome to the site!
The new O6 cabins look really nice with comfortable looking seats and a good IFE. I'm assuming these planes will also be making trips to North America given this cabin?
Sounds like you had a great crew since they let you have extra sandwiches. The red hats are quite unique (almost AM-esque).
As Kevin said, spotting bonuses are always welcome :)
Hey NGO85! Sorry for the late reply.
I finally had time to post the spotting bonus! I hope you guys like it.
Well, these planes are still not making North America trips. O6 was going to receive two A330s, but Brazil is now on a severe crisis, so they're waiting the right time to start these flights (but I think it will take a long time).
And yes, the crew was very, very nice!