Review of Ryanair flight from Baden-Baden to London in Economy

Hello and welcome to this flight report of Ryanair flight 9773 from Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport to London Stansted :)
This time I went with my family to London for a couple of days from wednesday to saturday.
Unlike last years' trip to London with British Airways ( of which I also wrote two flight reports ) we chose Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport wich is located nearby our hometown. I already have chosen this airport three times before, for the last time two years ago.

Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport served more than 40 years as a miltary base for the Canadian Air Force (RCAF) - until 1994. The first commercial flight took place in 2001.
The whole area round the airport is called "Baden Airpark" and because of its history as a military airfield there is plenty of space available and the runway is rather long (over 3000 meters).
Last year nearly 1,1 million passengers went airborne from here using Ryanair, Air Berlin, TUIfly, Eurowings, Turkish Airlines, Wizzair and some others. With some interesting new connections starting in October with Ryanair this number should be easily outperformed this year.

Arrival at the airport

Public transport to the airport is okay but not perfect (Bus connection to the nearby towns Rastatt and Baden-Baden but only few buses to Karlsruhe, the biggest city in its surrounding area), so the easiest way to reach this airport is by car. Fortunately there are plenty of car parks next to the airport. The ride to the airport took around 25 minutes and the footway to the Terminal another 10-15 minutes.
Here you can see the terminal, pretty unremarkable, isn't it? ;)

Vis-à-vis to the terminal there is a small Airport Hotel

First we went to the baggace claim area…a queue began to develop next to us at the closed TUIfly counter which was soon heading through all the bag drop area ;)
As you can see this is rather a lovely small kind of airport

Let's turn around and you can see the entrance to the security checks in the background:

What I like about Karlsruhe/Baden Airport is the fact you need so much less time to arrive at your gate than on bigger airports…let's see if this is still the case if the passenger numbers keep rising like they do at the moment…our aircraft will park behind those fir trees - on the right you can see the footway we'll take soon.

Boarding

The gate opened soon and we made our way to the aircraft. EI-DCN arrived from Zadar with some few minutes delay.

With its first flight perfomed in October 2004 this is one of the oldest planes in the Ryanair fleet though it is rather young for an airplane ( just keep in mind that the oldest A320 of Lufthansa is 28 years old, for example ;) )

After all passengers from Zadar had left the plane we could enter the 737 through the front door. The crew welcomed us quite friendly and I took my seat 09A…the seat pitch is quite ok, not really a difference to other european airlines in Economy - but the stowage pocket at the back of the seat is devinitively missing (of course, it is standard for Ryanair).

Safety instructions on the back of the headrest - simple, but effective ;)

Boarding was completed in a few minutes and I suppose all 189 seats were occupied

Next to us stood EI-FTN, it will soon depart to Sofia…

The way to the runway was quite short and I think we didn't use the full runway length…one TUIfly and one Ryanair 737-800 remained, as well as two Saab 340 cargo aircraft on the right

The takeoff was uneventful and we enjoyed a pretty view to the black forest…

…for just a short time.

Buy on board

After accepting orders for hot meals (pretty useless for such a short flight, isn't it? ;) ) the crew sold drinks and snacks…I bought a can of Pepsi Cola and some crisps - a classic combination.

They also sold Duty-Free items as well as scratch cards - the standard Ryanair Program ;)
The Channel wasn't far and we soon began our decent to Stansted

Arrival at Stansted Airport

I think this is Wethersfield airfield I captured during the descent:

The lovely english landscape…

…just somewhere in this lovely landscape hides Stansted Airport XD

The landing was also normal, nothing extraordinary…a Moldavian A319 is already on the way to its parking space

Arrival at gate 50L, this means a rather long footway…

Fortunately I took my passport with me and not only the ID so I could use the e-passport gates which meant I needed much less time for the border control.
The baggage was already here and so there was enough time for taking a photo of the baggage claim area of Stansted Airport.

As all the times before Stansted also left quite a positive impression to me this time.
The best way to get to London is taking the Stansted Express which brings you every 15 minutes to Liverpool Street Station in 47 minutes.

Some photos from London

The following four shots are taken from Kew Gardens near Richmond

The Palm House

No, Heathrow can't be that far from here…

I want to end this flight report with a shot of the Albert Memorial and Royal Albert Hall in the background which is really a great location for concerts of any kind.