Review of Volotea flight from Toulouse to Palma De Mallorca in Economy

Hello and welcome on-board this new report, following a pretty good success on the french part of the website (where of most of my contribution goes), I try to translate it into English a good exercise for me in order to improve my languages skills.

introduction

I've got a job with different shifts and I also use to work on bank holidays or week-end. That's allows me to get some days offs during the week. A nice opportunity for cheep traveling and trying to catch some new airplane into my logbook. I've never had the chance to fly on board the Boeing 757 and they unfortunately starts to leave the European sky slowly.

Few airlines still use the 757 on European network mainly for holidays destinations with airlines like TUI, Jet2 or Condor and that's on this airlines that i will fine a good opportunity to catch a B757-300 as Condor fly a lot of routes every day from Germany to Palma de Mallorca with these birds and for a very cheap price in my case only 20€ !
But I need to go to Mallorca and 3 airlines share the line from Toulouse. Easyjet, Vueling and the smallest one Volotea. I will choose the last one because the schedule and the price where the better just 20€ for this morning flight.

It's of course the first time that this flight is reported in British part of the website. It's also the first english report on board of the Volotea Airbus A319 who's slowly replace is Boeing 717 fleet with second hand A319.

Early morning departure from TLS

Once again to be on time to start my av-geek journey, i need to be at the airport before the sun rise, at this time there not to much people in front of the airport.

I use the escalator to climb at the departure level as you can see, arrival level is more than quiet.

Quick look on the FIDS, our flight is scheduled on time, check in is open.

Didn't need to check in a luggage, I go directly to the safety checks. Not too many people, this step is completed in few minutes.

Like almost all European major airport, the way to the gate cross the duty free shops.

After the duty free there is few more shops & restaurants but it's too early to enjoy these services.

Inside hall C the first passengers starts to wait for there flights, at the same time restaurant and shops starts to open.

Outside we can see some Air France A320 series ready for duty.

I haven't see any Volotea aircraft at the gate so I don't have any idea of which gate will be used to board our flight.

Finally our gate is displayed and all the passengers starts to move into. 

It's my first time at this gate, it's a paxbus door. It's not really efficient because most of the passengers are waiting inside the main corridor between the 2 hall a good way to jam the flow of passenger inside the building.

e-Boarding pass

Fortunately the boarding starts quickly and we soon get into the bus at ground level. In front of us this Air France A320 is prepared to get into Paris Orly.

This Volotea A319 is parked on a remote parking stand, but it isn't our aircraft

Is sistership is parked on the long term apron.

The bus stop in front of the stairs docked to EC-MTM. Named "C'est Parti" ("Let's go" in french) she's 15 years old and integrate the Volotea fleet in 2018 after a long career with Easyjet. 

You can easily saw is orange origin, the double overwing exit are not really common on A319 just few low-fares airlines ordered this configuration (Easyjet, Hamburg international, Niki…) to allow high density configurations.

Fuselage shoot, some titles are also in Italian another focus market for the Spanish airline.

on board Volotea A319

Two cabin crew (one french & one Spanish) welcoming passengers on board both were bit shy but there were smiling. On board the cabin is brand new with a pretty good design.

I move to my seat luckily the free seating allow me a window seat.

Detail on the colorful head rest.

Rear view, as you can see the Acro XS seat is pretty slim but still comfortable. Load factor is close to 70% this morning and I can enjoy a free triplet on this flight, nice bonus for the comfort mark.

There is no paper on the seat so the safety informations are printed below the tray table.

The pitch is not to bad for an LCC airlines, another advantage of the slim seats. There is also one less row than Easyjet ones.

The only item who's give an age at this retrofitted cabin is the overhead panel who's an old design for Airbus.

Window view, on the wing but you can still see this Erj 145 from Loganair who's operate a shuttle flight to Chester for Airbus.

Inside the cabine the boarding was completed few minutes ago, but we are still waiting. It's seem's to have a problem with the loading of one check in luggage.

We finally get ready to go without push back we were 20 minutes beyond our schedule take off time.

Sun rise on the Airbus factory

We roll on the taxiway near the runway. Today only the 32R is open and we can see this Embraer 190 of KLM cityhopper taking off to Amsterdam.

Followed by this ATR72 to Marseille

And this babybus to Orly.

There is many aircraft waiting their turn to get into the runway

Inside the cabin every body is seated ready to taking off.

Line up on the track.

Few seconds after we are airborne on the rising sun.

Just a moment after take-off we turn right in order to head south. In the middle of the picture you can see Blagnac airport.

We're backtracking the airport, flying over the Toulouse metropolitan area.

The city quickly gives way to the fields

We can already see the Pyrenees mountains some miles away

We are fast approaching the snow-capped peaks. Let the show begin.

There is still a lot of snow for a late May.

Inside the quiet cabin some passengers tries to finish their night

We are now leaving the mountains to fly over Catalonia 

 And few minutes after we leave the Spanish coast, to cross a small part of the Mediterranean Sea.

I didn't take the buy on board brochure who's on demand. But I can show you this advertise introducing the in flight entertainment on your own device available on the Airbus A319.

Blue surrounding, hard to see the limit between sky and sea.

The first reliefs marking the island of Mallorca appears on the horizon.

Flight path furbished by FR24, I wasn't on the good side to see Barcelona.

 We flew over the northern hills

In the middle of the picture the small city of Sa Pobla

Under the wings we can see the coast near Port d'Alcudia

Small turn on the right to catch the approach of runway 24L

Nice view on North Malloca's coast. Seem's to be a nice place to spend holiday's.

We cross the island from one side to the other, as you can see, there are not many houses in the center of the island.

We slowly get closer to the ground, music is broadcasted in the cabin during the approach.

During the last minutes of the flight we can see the surrounding of Palma.

No wind, will be an easy landing for our pilots

Arrival at Mallorca

Smooth landing & braking, normal with this nice weather

The PMI airport terminal is ahead of us.

We can see some aircraft during the taxi like this Boeing 737 of the Portuguese charter airlines Euroatlantic flying for TUI Nederland heading to Rotterdam.

And this A320 from Eurowings Europe based on Palma de Mallorca who will fly to Paderborn.

For this Air Europa Boeing 737-800 the flight for Madrid will be shorter.

After few minutes of taxi, we reach our gate.

The jetbridge is connected to the aircraft and we can leave it by the front left door after saying goodbye to our cabin crews

The last photo of Tango Mike who will return soon to Toulouse continuing his long day of work.

I hope you enjoyed this short report, and I hope to translate you the next report on-board the Boeing 757-300.
See you in the air…