Review of Nordica flight Tallinn → Vilnius in Economy

Hi, and welcome to my todays review! Today, I'll be reviewing my experience with the new Nordica ATR72-600 on a flight from Tallinn to Vilnius. Again, I'm not traveling alone, so I'll be writing in multiple.

We have arrived in Tallinn earlier that day by ferry from Helsinki. The way to the airport is from the port is easy, you can either take a bus 2, which goes directly from port to the airport, or be like us and walk trough the city a little bit (it's really small, you can be in the city center from the port in 15 minutes, or even less), and take a tram number 4. Feeling a little bit more exotic and having time to spend, we chose the tram. You can either buy a ticket from the driver for 2€ (anywhere in Tallinn public transport), or a QR ticket trough website or app on your phone for 1€. The trip from port to airport by bus takes approx. 18 minutes, as from the city center to the airport by tram about 22 minutes.

The trams are qute quiet, clean, and have a nice sign with next stops, wich displays also time to reach the stops and departure times of connecting lines of public transport.


The trams interior

The following stops screen

After reaching the airport with public transport, you still have to walk a while to reach the departures hall. The way is marked as arrivals and departures, but it might be slightly confusing to some passengers.


Public transport arrival terminal

Entrance to the terminal

The insides of the terminal feel nice and "homely", even though the airport is quite small. There is one economy class/bag drop check-in counter for all LOT/Nordica flights from the airport, and even though our flight wasn't the only one departing out of there, there was no queue waiting for us. After checking in the luggage and recieving our boarding passes, we made our way to the security checkpoint. Again, no queues whatsoever. RIP to people who paid for fast track. The security equipment is the same as in OSL, PRG… - the rentget that separates suspicious items from clear ones, to speed up the procedure. We had one bag separated, but it was just for quick check of our powerbank by a friendly looking security officer. After clearing the security, you have to pass trough quite big duty free shop, untill you finaly get to the gates area. From there, having quite a lot of time to spare, we went to check out the Bussiness class lounge.


Departures hall

LOT/Nordica check-in desk

To the gates

Security controll queues

The lounge costs 30€/person if you don't have a bussiness class ticket. For the price, you get a quiet and comfy place to wait for your flight, with unlimited consumation of availible drinks and snacks. The lounge had a variety of non-alcoholic drinks, alcoholic drinks, coffee and tea, and also salads, breads and some sweets and fruits. There is a library corner, also equipped with a TV, computer with a printer in case you need to do someting before the flight, and the rest of the lounge with different kinds of chairs and places to sit. the seats looking from the window are "bar stool" only, next to a laptop table. The lounge also has a rooftop terrace, which was quite nice and seems like a good place for quick spotters wanting to get some pics of arrivals for runway 08. Unfortunately, Flighradar24 had some network problems for the time we were at the airport, so I couldn't see if anything was coming, and so I went back inside. There were also some pillows and blankets for you to take if you feel cold or wanting to rest.


My view of the lounge

The mens toilet

view from the lounge onto the tarmac

view from the terrace onto runway 28

Our gate was number 2, which is the closest one to the main terminal building on the south side, so we had quite short walk to reach our gate. The rest of the schengen are is quite compact, having approx. 6 gates quite close to each other. The gates are themed by ads, and our gate was in a theme of some local beer company. Our airplane was sligtly delayed on the arrival, which lead to about 15 minutes delay on the departure. Unfortunately, noone of the airport staff gave any info to all the passengers, only some "whispering" between them and people who came to ask what is going on. When we finaly started boarding, flying the ATR, we had to go downstairs and walk to the airplane (don't take me wrong, I had no problem with it). The boarding was quite quick, as there wasn't even half of the airplane full. Unfortunately, some people from the front of the aircraft had to be reseated to ensure the proper weight balance of the aircaft. My seat 5F was right next to the propeler, but that is something you can just guess, as there is no indication in the seatplan when selecting a seat. Otherwise, except of non-funcional bottom seat pockets, the seat was quite clean and comfy.


Our gate number 2

ES-ATA arriving at the gate

view of other aircraft while boarding

my window view

After powerback and short taxi to the runway, we got to the weakest point of my seat on the ATR - the take off. As you are sitting right between the propelers, the vibrations are so strong you can't hear anything, no matter how hard you try. After few minutes, when the airplane goes to climb mode, everything is fine again.



Few more minutes passed, and shortly after the captain turned off the fasten seat belts sign, the cabin crew stared the service. On these flights, you get complimentary water, tea or coffee, and you can buy something from the food selection. No Duty-free on ATR flights (not surprised).


The seat in front of me

My tea

in-flight view

The toilets in the ATR are quite cramped, and are definately not a place to join the mile-high club. The operation of the sink is also quite challenging, needing to press on a small pad next to the faucet, if you want the water to flow. Also, to empty the sink, you have to pull a lever on the faucet.


toilet

sink

cabin view

The rest of the flight went quite fine, just some small bumps from the clouds, and one jump on landing



Deboarding was quite quick, and was done into a bus. The trip to the arrivals hall was quite long, especialy considering the hot weather we had to fight in the un-airconditioned bus. When reached the arrivals hall, on our belt, there were few bags already, but supposedly they were just bags the baggage claim was dealing with, so we had to still wait a while. As there wasn't a huge amount of baggage on our flight, we got our bag almost immediately after the belt started moving. The arrivals hall looks quite nice, kind of like a old railway station, though I assume it can get quite crowded if more flights arrive at the same time.


Our bus

Last waving to our airplane

entrance to the arrivals area

our baggage belt

Thank you everyone for reading this review, and see you soon with a report of the return flight.