Review of Malta Air (Ryanair) flight from Toulouse to Trapani in Economy

Hello, happy new year and welcome on board this Flight-report ! Hope you're doing well it has been a long time since I didn't wright on the English counterpart of our website. For today a short and unexpected Mediterranean crossing with Malta Air to reach Sicily island.

introduction

We are at the end of August when I decide to do a little av-geek routing in mid-September, my girlfriend being on a business trip this weekend. For a very long time, I have been looking for a B767 flight, the only type of recent western long-haul aircraft missing in my logbook.

Unfortunately the passenger versions of this model launched in the early 80's are becoming increasingly rare, especially in Europe (even if the aircraft is still in production for cargo and tanker versions) the only remaining operator are mainly leisure airlines such as Condor and TUI.

With the gradual entry into service of the A330s at German airways Condor, Boeing 767s have been replaced on flights to the Balearic and Canary Islands.

So TUI will do the job ! 4 frames were still in operation last summer, 2 in Benelux (one with a Belgian registration the other Dutch) and the remaining 2 at TUI UK with the 2 aircraft based in Manchester. Moreover, all these birds must leave the fleet of the leisure company by the end of the year.

After deep investigation on Flightradar24, I realize that the 2 Manchester based aircraft operates 2 flights every Saturday morning one hour apart towards Mallorca. This is a great opportunity, especially since the prices remain reasonable for these end-of-season flights.

It is also very easy to return from PMI to Toulouse, my base airport. It will be Easyjet which offers a late evening flight.

The hardest part will be to get to MAN, since the Flybe bankrupt there are no more direct flights between Toulouse and Manchester. But there is a line operated twice a week by Ryanair departing from Carcassonne (a small airfield hosting few Ryanair flight located at less than 2 hour of public transport from Toulouse) with a departure on a Friday at the end of the afternoon, for less than 50€!
Av-geek bonus, the flight is operated by the brand new Boeing 737max-200, a nice addition to my logbook as well.

Routing before french ATC strike:

But has you can imagine it didn't go as planned, on Tuesday the french air traffic controllers' unions raised a strike notice for Friday the 16th, for salary increase and to secure future recruitment's.
The strike is important and airlines are required to cut off their flights schedule by half. The day before I receive a notice that my Carcassonne - Manchester flight was cancelled. My hotel can be refunded but not my 2 others tickets for TUI and Easyjet, i.e. a loss of over 150€.

I look at the scheduled flights finally operated by FR over the South-West of France and I realize that one of the rare flights maintained from Toulouse is the one to Trapani in Sicily and that there is a departure for Manchester from Trapani late in the evening I give it a try by exchanging my CCF-MAN ticket for a TPS-MAN for free via the FR application and I buying a TLS-TPS for an extra €48.

Routing after strike:

I was a bit surprise to see that the small airport of Trapani was already reported on the english part of the website, with a report made by Loukas for a flight to Warsaw Modlin
Of course this flight between Toulouse and Trapani is new on the database,  

Departure from toulouse on strike day

On this Friday morning , the sky is gloomy other the Toulouse airport and I even had a little rain when I left my house, once again I use my company's shuttle to reach the terminal.

 A few people at the arrivals level most of them are waiting the arrival of there relatives at the coffee that is in front of arrival doors.

I go up to the departures level and it's the desert… really impressive, it brings back bad memories of the Covid period.

The FIDS shows an impressive number of canceled flights!

I cross the security controls, where 4 high capacity lines were opened for less than 10 passengers, The agents were relaxed, smiling and were not far to get a bit bored.

If you follow my reports, the Duty Free area should not be unknown to you, in fact, you should obligatory cross it to go to gates. Decor has never changed too much, fortunately av-geeks have not been forgotten in the shop.

The small mall is totally open and I would make a short stop at the ATM to withdraw some cash, just in case, the day can easily be full of twists and turns due to ATC strikes.

 With all these canceled flights there are also very few peoples in hall C, despite most of the shops were open.

Through the windows you can see a lot of activity in the factories of the European aircraft manufacturer with this Beluga XL departing for Chester, or this A350 from the Taiwanese company Starlux which is starting for an engine run.

There are also dozen's of Airbus A320neo at different stages of completion.

On the way I catch this Air France Airbus A319 departing for Paris Orly

I also see my plane of the day, the single Ryanair Boeing 737 based in Toulouse, it will start its day with this round trip to Trapani, the previous flight to Palma de Mallorca was cancelled.

Well, we are 40 minutes before departure and the first passengers are already boarding ! It would be better for me to go to the gate if I don't wan't to miss my flight.

My flight departs from concourse D gate 51; when I arrive in front of the door a few seconds later the display is on last call and apart from the agents there is no one left in front of the gate.

We are 25 minutes ahead a schedule when I scan my BP to board, joking with the hostess at the door, telling her that I have rarely boarded so early, especially on a strike day.

I must admit that these false contact doors are my favorite (when the weather is nice) it's easy to present the aircraft of the day, registred 9H-QDF, it's a Boeing 737-800 delivered 5 years ago at the Irish low-cost carrier latter transferred to is Maltese subsidiary.

On board malta Air boeing 737-800

I board the aircraft threw  the staircase integrated under the front door, a quite unique feature on passenger version of the 737 but used mainly on Boeing Business Jet version and on Ryanair aircrafts !

Fuselage shoot with a good view on our CFM-56 engine

The only two solutions to know that you are flying on board on aircraft operated by Matla Air is this small sticker near door 1L and the aircraft registation starting with 9H-*** (registration country code of Malta).
Cabin crews welcoming passengers at the door, were friendly and polite.

I join my seat in row 8 on the right hand window side, as usual on Malta Air you can find the latest Ryanair seats.

On board we find the usual cabin of Malta air aircraft equipped with the "skyinterior" which gives a good face-lift to the 737 cabin. with the added bonus of latest generation overhead panel.

The pitch is surprisingly generous for a low-cost airline like Ryanair, I think it's even better than on some majors.

The view from my seat in row 8 is perfect, I can see this Lufthansa Airbus Airbus A320 arriving from FRA. Just after doors closure, a couple of minutes ahead of the schedule, a delay of one hour is announced by our captain due to a slot restriction consecutive to French air traffic control strikes.
Captain tells us that they have declared themselves ready to go in order to obtain an improvement of this slot. Spoiler this improvement will not happen and I would even see the LH A320 returning to FRA…

Arrived few hours ago from Hamburg Filkenwerder with the "Airbus" shuttle, this Volotea Airbus A319 will just operate a flight in the evening to Catania..

We are finally pushing back with a one hour delay. Taxiing will be straight (logical given the few flights) for a departure on runway 32R.

It's finally time to get on runway !

Smooth and short take-off, we are quickly in the air due to the limited loadfactor on our flight 

Flying above the hangars of the Airbus Jean Luc Lagardère plant, the former assembly line of the A380…

As we leave the suburbs of the Toulouse metropolitan area, our Boeing makes a U turn in order to heading south.

In the cabin the atmosphere is very quiet, the flight is not full this Friday morning with a loadfactor that I estimate at around 70%.

Has we are climbing over the city of Toulouse the cloud layer just beginning to tear.

But clouds finally disappears as we approaching Catalonia. Due to the ATC strike, we taken a route much further south than usual in order to avoid the area in charge of Marseilles FIR as much as possible. We are therefore practically vertical to spanish city of Figueres when we leave the coast for a partial crossing of the Mediterranean sea.

The usual buy on board, duty-free and lotery tickets will be proposed by our crew with great inforcements of announcements and trolley passing threw the aisle.

 Blue above, blue below only the few cirrus clouds separate the sea from the sky.

No seat pocket, and no on-board documentation as well, you can see the safety instructions stuck on the front seat head rest, which greatly complicates the work of safety card collectors.

 Wefly over the ground for a few minutes, the time to cross Sardinia island from West to East.

 Detail on the winglet of the day with the name of the holding.

The route of the day much further south than usual (on other days the flights flew over Corsica). For the rather classic 38000ft cruise for a B737-800.

Our descent is already well underway when the silhouette of the island of Marettimo appears on the horizon. Sicily is not far away!

 The cabin is prepared for the landing.

 We fly over the island of Levanzo here is the main port village with crystal clear water.

The approach for runway 13R passes north of the island of Favignana.

 We pass over the ferry that connects the island to the Port of Trapani

 Then it is finally the beach that we see during the last seconds of flight, the runway is built at the edge of the shore.

landing on sicily sun

Hard landing (as often with Ryanair) but moderate braking because it's necessary to go almost to the end of runway 13 to reach the short taxiway that serves the terminal.

 Terminal modestly sized, it seems adapted to the traffic transiting through the platform at this end of summer.

The airfield does not only host few low-cost flights, it is also an important air base for the Aeronautica militare (it hosts the 37th Stormo Fighter Squadron) it also seems to be used by private jets users, like this Alpijet Gulfstream G450 which arrived from Vienna 2 days earlier.

But also for sanitary flight like this Bombardier Challenger 650 from the REGA (Swiss Air Rescue Guard) who came to pick up an injured person. We will park next to him.

It's time to leave this cabin not so uncomfortable for an hour and a half flight. We can see that the colors chosen for this modernized version of the cabin are much more pleasant, especially for the yellow.

Disambarking through the front door and its famous integrated staircase, after a polite goodbye from the crew at the door.

Definitely it's a bit of a mess this transfer to the terminal with passengers who walk practically freely on the tarmac, The charm of Latin countries… Good point the ground staff has no clue with passengers taking pictures on the tarmac

Let me the opportunity one last time to take pictures of my bird of the day under the beautiful Sicilian light. Bye bye Delta, X-ray.

No doubt on arrival we know who is the major operator of the airport and we can see that the main targeted market is the Italian domestic flights, a market where Ryanair is one of the major actor.
These domestics flights are also the only connections operated all year round from Trapani by FR.

We pass in front of the border control boxes without any agent. Doors are widely open at this time were only Schengen flights are expected.

Passage, without stop in front of the luggage delivery belts. I would make a small stop at the toilet located a little further. Slightly undersized in number, it will also not be really clean.

Small spot for Instagramers… which allows me to give you the name of the airport, Vincenzo Florio, named after the famous Sicilian merchant and senator of the 19th century.

I get out groundside into a large hall that host a small cafeteria, less than a dozen check-in counters and a few other essential services for departing or arriving passengers.

On the ceiling we find this drawing showing the typical landscapes of the Trapani region and more particularly the now touristic site of the saltworks dello Stagnone and their famous windmills. Below there is a fresco with some of the aircraft operated from the airfield and other completely fanciful like the Airbus A380 or the American space shuttle.

The FIDS remains light, with predominantly Ryanair and with a large majority of Italian destinations. The Danish charter company DAT seems like a UFO but this is explained by the fact that it has taken over the state contract for flights to the small islands of Pantelleria and Lampedusa operated by ATR72.

To reach the public transport stops, you have to walk to the entrance to the airport where you will find the buses parking lot, the indication could have been clearer.
The bus journey between the city of Trapani and the airport takes about 25 minutes and there is about 1 bus per hour which was a bit short because of the high number of people due to the arrival of several flights in a short time. Cost is 4,50€ one way.
Small tip it's better to buy tickets in the terminal because not all the buses that are operating on the line are equipped with distributors and for those equipped, the machine accepting credit cards seems to be regularly out of order.

This will lead to a lively discussion when an Italian women was refused because the credit card machine doesn't not work. My poor Italian skills will help me understand that the bus driver will take me as an example saying to the lady
-"Even the tourist understood that he had to buy a ticket in the terminal!"

It's a pity that the airport gates are non-spotter friendly because the aircraft pass rather close to where I was waiting for my bus to the city of Trapani, here is a Malta Air Boeing 737-800 was about to take off for Pisa.

I apologize for the quality of the photo of this Italian Canadair CL415 who was then going on a fire mission. This is undoubtedly one of the last photos of this aircraft… "Canadair 28" will crash a little more than a month later on the foothills of Etna killing is two pilots, Roberto Mazzone and Matteo Pozzoli this story is dedicated to them…

I'll see you soon for the rest of this story until then good and safe flights to all!