Review of Transavia flight Valencia → Amsterdam in Economy

Goodday,

Welcome to my flight report on a flight returning home from my last working shift prior to a two week holiday at home. I arrived out of Tangier last night with my work and had about five hours of sleep before returning to the airport to catch my flight to Amsterdam on which I was booked by my company. Luckily enough we were in a hotel with a free shuttle service and a ride of approx. five minutes to the Airport, which at that moment was quite booming and busy with long waiting lines in front of many check-in kiosks. 

Check-in was quite chaotic with four counters being open which were split between two flights. The left two were for Eindhoven, the other two were for our flight to Amsterdam. Waiting time took about a hour and 30 minutes to clear only to be notified that me and my colleague were put on standby due to an overbooking of the flight by exactly two seats… 

Despite hearing to be standby, we were told to proceed to the check-in area and await if some people did not show up. Security itself was quite busy too, but took not more than 20 minutes to clear as it was quite efficient.

A Transavia France did just arrive from Orly and was disembarkig it's passengers with a Swiss Airbus A320 taxiing to one of the stands after it's arrival from Zurich.

The flight of us would depart from Gate 17, which was at the end of the terminal with a nice model of an Air Nostrum CRJ handing on the ceiling. It however was completely packed and seating was limited. Me & my colleague proceeded to the ground agent on duty and were checking if we perhaps could join on the Eindhoven flight which was to depart about 15 minutes prior to our flight, but we did not prevail as that one was fully booked too.

The boarding card I received during check-in.

Despite the ground attendant doing their best to put us on the Eindhoven flight if possible, it became quite apparent when we saw the left Transavia being prepared for it's departure just after the Ryanair flight started to disembark after a flight of Italy. By this time, the right Trans was already loadig luggage and fueling for it's departure to Amsterdam.

The ground attendant told us soon after that there unfortunately is no room on the Amsterdam flight too and that we could opt for the night flight of Transavia which had still about 15 seats left and would depart at 20:50. We accepted, but we said we would appreciate if she could put us on the KLM flight of 5 pm, which she unfortunately wasn't able to do so.

After following her instructions what to do, we were heading back to landside to Swissport their counter in which we received our new bookings for the evening flight and a paper stating our rights and that we would be able to receive a compensation of 250 EUR due to a delay of more than five hours. She also gave us some food vouchers and asked us if we would be willing to use a taxi on their expenses to the city center. We kindly agreed but asked her what to do with our luggage. She replied to us that she was unable to check them in as of now due to the fact that they do not have storage for luggage on the airside and offered to store the two bags in her office instead while we would be able to freely roam through Valencia.

The taxi dropped us off at the main train station around 11 am, which meant that we roughly had 6.5 hours to kill prior to us proceeding back to the airport for our flight. Quite a long time with limited sleep, but luckily Valencia offers a lot to see and is one of my favourite Spanish cities to spend my time in. I've been previously staying in Valencia for about a month due to my training with a previous company I used to work for, so I know more or less my way around the city and to show my colleague some of the beauties of Valencia (don't worry, I will not spoil too much here).

Mercado Central is a large indoor market building which offers a variety of vendors with typical Spanish products. Worth to pay a short visit, but it unfortunately does not offer a lot of variety in terms of shops.

Torres de Serranos, a Gothic tower which used to be part of the old city wall of Valencia and yes, you are able to enter it with a free admission. 

A beautiful view of Basílica de la Mare de Déu dels Desemparats, which is a well-known shrine of the patron saint of Valencia.

After having some proper breakfast, city sighting and a solid lunch/dinner, it was time for us to return to the airport and we slowly walked back to the train station to catch the underground instead as we had plenty of time.

The underground took about 25 minutes to reach and costs about 4.90 EUR.

About 2 hours prior to departure, we were back at the airport and it was not as hectic and busy as it was in the morning. We went to Swissport's counter to pick up our luggage, but the new lady behind the counter told us to wait in line to drop off our bags unlike what was told by her colleague earlier that morning.

And you guess it…. the line was massive with only one counter open for our flight. The 2nd counter opened up about 90 minutes prior to departure, but it took us about a solid 45 minutes to clear. Shortly before we were ready to drop off our bags, one of the ground staff asked us why we did not come forward to drop our bags immediately. We told her that his colleague told us to wait in line and after hearing that he apologized like ten times for that. 

With about 30 minutes left to boarding, the security was quiet and did not take more than two minutes to clear with a now quiet terminal and most shops being closed. Luckily enough the evening's flight was parked at Gate 12 and was connected to a jetbridge.

About five minutes to our called boarding time, the aircraft was already almost ready for it's flight and it became quite clear that we would depart ahead of time as every passenger was on-time and it was a breeze to enter the aircraft. I think this flight took no longer than 15 minutes in total to be fully loaded. Passenger load was about 85% I'd say. Unfortunately none of the flight attendants was in the mood to greet any of the passengers…. Not a nice start I'd say.

Today's flight would be performed by a 6.5 year old Boeing 737-800 with scimitar wings and has solely been in service to Transavia Holland with temporary short leases to SunCountry in Canada. It can carry up to 189 passengers in an all-economy configuration.   

Legroom at my seat 3A was very limited and would reduce even more when there were two guys joining next to me. Luckily my colleague in the row behind me had the entire row to himself and asked why I did not move to the aisle. I agreed and asked the guys if I was able to get out of the seat to get us all some extra room.

While Transavia's seats are made of e-leather (which they promote heavily) the seat itself is quite comfortable in terms of padding, but the legroom is killing….. Probably worser than Ryanair or Wizzair.

Made my way to the seat 4C, which also came with a tad more legroom and I was able to move my knees freely instead of kicking them in the back of the passenger in front of me. I'm still not impressed though.

Literature available in the seatpocket. It consisted of a safety card, sickbag, BoB menu & Magazine/Shop.

While the magazine itself is not much of an interesting read, it does have some nice and interesting avgeek pages with providing small facts about the aircraft they are using and some facts of the soft product like the E-Leather seat and a history page of the airline due to the fact that they turned 55 years old this year.

Boarding was quickly performed and it also meant that we eventually departed 12 minutes ahead of our scheduled departure time, which was a good thing and rarely happens to me. Though during the taxi we were holding short of Runway 30 for at least 10 minutes, but I noticed by now that this aircraft was fitted with a Boeing Sky Interior which is definitely a welcoming addition on the 737.

While the cabin was quite dark, any chance for proper photos was limited, however I managed to grab a few shots of the Buy on Board menu of Transavia which was limited yet not extremely expensive if you compare it to some of their competitors.

It took about 45 minutes for the flight attendants to appear in the cabin to start their BoB service and opted to grab a coke. Transavia currently only accepts card payment due to Covid-19, so any cash will not bring you far. It was also the only time the flight attendants were seen as they were more busy having a chat with their colleagues in the galley. Apparently it was more important for them to chat about their hobbies & activities rather than attending to the passengers

Unfortunately the loo wasn't the cleanest either. The visual looks of the toilet weren't too bad, but it had a very pungent smell of piss.

About two hours in flight, we were already in approach to a very windy and rainy Amsterdam. Luckily enough Runway 27 was in use which required only a short taxi time to stand D67. The landing itself was very pleasant and well-performed by both pilots.

As D67 is originally a non-schengen gate, we were directed to the hallway in the upper part of KLM's pier which connects to the Schengen terminal without any passport or security control, but it does not have some proper views of the aircraft and is just a plain long hallway with escalators.

Belt 6 was in use for our luggage and it took about 20 minutes for it to appear on belt and soon I was heading home for a well-deserved two weeks off.