Hello and welcome on board my first flight report in English !
Let me introduce myself a little. I’m a 25 year old boy, living in Toulouse. Aeronautics and travels are my hobby’s. I’m not really a frequent flyer (24 flights/year mainly short haul).
Of course my English is not really good, but I hope you can enjoy this report. Please do not hesitate to correct my sentences if necessary.
Routing :
A54213 TLS-LYS : 02/06/16 Hop ! (Air France) Airbus A319 (already online in French will not be translated in English)
A54526 LYS-VCE : 02/06/16 Hop ! (Brit Air) Bombardier Crj 700 (here we are)
Return flights :
AF1527 VCE-CDG : 07/06/16 Air France Airbus A318 (already online in french)
AF6134 ORY-TLS : 11/06/16 Air France Airbus A319 (no report on this flight)
After all these information’s let’s start the report,
The English database is quite empty for the HOP! (A5) airline and Venezia airport has been reported just few times.
The report starts in the transit zone of Lyon Saint Exupéry Airport it’s quite unusual to transit by this airport for an international flight. Most of the international flights in French middle sized airport (Marseille, Toulouse) are low-cost and feeders for major airlines. Just for information we talk of an airport who host more than 9 000 000 passengers last year like Glasgow for example.
Anyway transit in this airport between two HOP flights is really easy as you will see.
Here is the Air France A319 who brought us in Lyon from Toulouse, we just get out the jetbridge and we land directly in domestic airside of the airport. Normally LYS is a quite calm airport but today some domestic flights are canceled because of the ATC strike in Paris.
The FIDS. Sorry for the blurred picture.
After a stop at the crowded and dirty toilet, we walk less than fifty meters from our original landing door to the border control area. Normally Schengen flights aren’t under control but since the Paris attacks, all the international flights are controlled. Two desks are opened with nobody waiting on the lane.
We go down the stairs to the ground floor where our gate is located. Just before the border control a notice say that no shops are available downstairs. It’s unfortunately true; the room hosts all the international paxbus gates. It’s cold, with just toilets, one vending machine and a single electric plug. No wifi on this part of the airport.
Our gate located on the Cobus carpark, no newspaper available on ground and on board the airplane.
Boarding pass,
Let’s go for a little bus tour. Our bus is a Cobus 2700, shorter than the classic 3000 but it’s enough for all the passenger of this flight.
We roll to the S doors but we don’t forget to let the priority to this Embraer 145.
Exclamation mark lineup.
The bus stops close to our aircraft, today the flight is performed by a Crj 700 (F-GRZF). She’s 14 years old and she always flew for the French Brittany airline Britair, who became Hop! With the fusion of three airlines: Airlinair, Britair and Regional.
We climb by the stairs located on the aircraft left hand front door. Cold welcome from the steward.
We walk through the cabin to our seats located at the emergency exit.
View other side of the aisle. The seats looks vintage despite the addition of red heads rests.
The pitch is, at the emergency exit, really good, as you can see the carpets are clean but vintage. The only problem of my seat is the basis completely destroyed and tilted forward. Not really comfortable.
My girlfriend spread all of is 1, 70 meter and our neighbors put their medical stockings (Did the pilots schedule aerobatics on our flight?)
The rain begins to fall, despite drops we guess a sister ship.
Quickly replaced by an Embraer 135 of Pan European Air Service, a charter airline, who perform a flight for HOP today.
Boarding complete, pushback on time.
Last look on LYS gates.
Short taxi to use just the half of runaway 18R (4000m). Thanks to the aircraft speed the water drops and we can see the village of Colombier-Saugnieu.
The aircraft climb smoothly
We pass over the clouds to find the sun shining on the winglet.
Unfortunately the sky will stay cover during the first part of the flight; the Alpes view isn’t for today… so let’s read the inflight magazine (same as Air France) and the safety card.
The Hop! network
Cabine view, with a load factor close to 100%.
A little snack is offer with a drink. A choose the Cola and salted choice of snack. It’s a bit light for a 1 hour flight.
The cloud coverage pass from overcast to scattered over Modena, so I can take some air to ground pictures.
Route of the day,
During the descent the clouds start to disappear, we can see the Pô river and the junction with canal “Cavo Napoleonico “who links Pô and Reno river.
We follow the meander of Pô river. It’s the natural separation between Lombardia region and Veneto region.
After few minutes pilots began the approach of Tessera airport we flew over Piove di Sacco near the lagoon. At that point I’m really disappointed that I did not have the opportunity to choose a seat on the right side of the plane. Unfortunately I will miss the aerial view over Venezia.
So let’s have a look on Mestre and Marghera harbor.
In the over side its look like this.
The little village of Campalto.
We pass over the Canale di San Giuliano who links the airport and the lagoon.
Private jet apron, with 2 Gulfstream (G550 on the left, G650 in the middle) and one Bombardier Global Express on the right side of the picture. In the top right corner of the picture you can see the boat station. Another interesting detail we land on runway 04R, the left hand runaway (we can see the arrow indicating the threshold) looks to be use only as a taxiway.
A short view on the cargo plane apron during flaring, where this Hawker jet take a rest.
On the passenger terminal, we can meet the European classics.
We cross the runway 04L. Firefighters look ready with all their trucks parked in front of the fire brigade building.
The main terminal under renovation with a KLM 737 docked.
We turn on the right side of the taxiway to be parked on the other side of the airport even further than LCC like Volotea or Easyjet. No with no doubts it will be paxbus for us.
After the Cobus 2700 of Lyon, we took an old (looks) Cobus 3000.
We say goodbye to the steward (he answered without smile) and we get off the aircraft on time. Meanwhile ground staff starts unloading the aircraft.
Captain speaks to the dispatch lady with is funny dress (farmer boots + short skirt + orange high visibility vest = new classy style) on the moment I was little bit worried about aqua alta.
Last look on our aircraft.
During our short visit of the Venetian tarmac we pass next to this Embraer 145 of Flykiss a new French regional airline. But today he flew for the young French national soccer team who play against their Italian counterpart tonight.
After being dropped from the bus we walk few meters on ground floor to land on luggage claim area. Funny detail the luggage belts where sponsored by the Casino de Venezia.
We wait our luggage just one or two minutes in front of the conveyor.
Then we pass groundside to get our Venezia pass and our Alaliguna boat-bus tickets at the airport counter. Because of the renovation works we should go outside to take our bus-boat to the temporary boat station located just few hundred meters away.
The future (now active) boat station.
After a pleasant boat trip we arrive on Venetia center near the hospital where our hotel is located. Of course is not the cheapest way to transfer from the airport to the city but it’s really pleasant and easy.
I hope you enjoy this report (and I expect it was understandable). As reward here’s some pictures of Venezia.
Basilica Santa Maria de Assunta on the quite & green island of Torcello.
View on Burano from the campanile
Colored house of Burano island
Grand Canal from Accademia bridge.
Venetian lifestyle
Piazza San Marco & Palazzo ducale.
Who said cliché?
Thank you for sharing this FR with us!
A lot of interesting information.
Great aerial shots and nice spotting shots at LYS and VCE.
Sorry to hear you did not have the best crew, thankfully the flight was a quick one.
Beautiful bonus!
Have a good one, see you!
Well documented