Review of Jet2.com flight from Manchester to Lanzarote Island in Economy

The childhood bucketlist

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report! 

This will be the first of two FRs covering a recent trip to Lanzarote where I'll be flying there from Manchester and returning back to London on British Airways. To be honest, I didn't plan on going back to the Canaries this year as I've only just visited the year prior. However, I chose to go purely because of this flight.

It won't be an exaggeration to say that I've wanted to fly on Jet2's A330 for a very, very long time. Growing up in Manchester, I used to make frequent visits to its visitor park and I've always been fascinated by these A330s rolling out with temporary Jet2 liveries, even more so after I discovered that those planes were operated by AirTanker using converted A330MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport) for civilian use. AirTanker primarily provides the RAF with a fleet of A330MRTTs for aerial refueling and troop transport under contract from the UK government (including a regular service from RAF Brize Norton to the Falklands via Cape Verde that can also be booked by civilians). It leases a few converted A330-200s to Jet2 (and formerly Thomas Cook) during the summer for additional revenue. With all that said, you can imagine why this flight is so high on my bucket list.  

As for price, the base fare for the flight was £105, I paid an additional £9.50 for seats and £10 for a meal as Jet2 offers a 15% discount if you buy both at the same time. With the discount applied, the flight costed me £121.57 in total (without checked luggage). This was quite a bit more than the cheapest option out of Manchester however this was the cheapest option for the A330.  

From 2023, I aim to offset all of my CO2 emission from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard. The CO2 output for this trip is:

MAN-ACE: 220kg
Total for 2023 (so far): 1786kg

Video report

Here's the video version of this FR, it's pretty much got the same thing content wise. 

Getting to Manchester airport

Now living in London, I (once again) had to begin my trip abroad with a train journey from London Euston.

The station at 6:00AM.

Taking the first train to Manchester - journey time is just over 2 hours.  

After a couple of hours in the city (to meet with some old friends), I opted to take the bus to the airport. The airport is actually very well served by public transport. There are frequent trains to the airport (as it serves as a terminus for most train heading North to Edinburgh and West to Wales via Manchester City Centre) with the journey time being just over 10 minutes. There's also a tram line to the airport however that takes around an hour from the city. Finally, there's 2 bus routes that also go from the city to the airport. I picked the bus because I bought an unlimited bus pass along with my train ticket as I needed it earlier. 

Piccadilly Gardens - the main bus station for all buses heading South from the city.  

Like the tram, the bus only takes an hour (wow, I forgot how amazing it is to live in a smaller city haha) and pretty soon we're approaching the airport.  

Yup, now that I'm here I'm definitely getting nostalgic about all the times I've been here when I was young. 

Manchester airport (man)

The bus and train stations are basically in the same place in the airport - between Terminals 1 and 3. 

Like most Jet2 flights, our flight will be departing out of Terminal 2. It's the furthest terminal from the station however it's still very much a walkable distance (around 5-10 minutes). 

The walkway connecting the bus/train station to Terminal 2. I've got very fond memories of these walkways as I used to stand here and watch the planes at the apron. 

This'll actually be my first time flying out of Terminal 2 and I'm really curious on what it's like as I've heard that the terminal recently underwent an extension that was completed in 2021. 
 
The check-in area for TUI.

The check-in area for Jet2. As you can see, there was a huge queue mainly because most of the desks were closed (with only around 1/3 open). I'm not sure if this is due to staffing issues or anything else but it must've taken at least 15-20 minutes to get through. Luckily, I can skip the queue as I checked in online (Jet2 charges an additional fee to for airport check-in) and I had no checked luggage (they charge extra for that as well). 

View outside the terminal (drop-off area is on the left). 

The check-in desks on the far end of the airport. This section is much quieter (and newer) than the check-in desks for TUI and Jet2 - it's mainly used for foreign carriers like Qatar and Saudia.  

Departures for the afternoon.  

Let's head through security! 

Security took around 20 minutes - this is pretty standard for UK airports. However, I have to mention that the staff here are very rude and unfriendly (much like my previous experience of the airport). Apparently there were a wait of an hour if your bag is pulled for a hand search, which they berate the passengers for. Like I get that they need to remind people to be careful and pay attention but there's no point blaming the passengers as if they wanted their bags to be searched. It just created a stressful and unpleasant atmosphere overall. Maybe if they were more friendly, more people would ask if they were unsure, which might help with the long wait.

Luckily, I got through without any issues and here's a first view of the apron.  

The duty-free area. This is pretty much the same in all European airports.

The waiting area. While it's very crowded, I was very surprised at how modern and spacious the whole place felt, which is an amazing change from the windowless, cramped area most UK airports stuff you into (including T3 here at MAN). 

There's also a food court available, although it is very crowded with basically no spare seats available.   

Also, there's plenty of windows here for planespotting! It's so weird to be excited at something as basic as a window but if you've been to other UK airports (including MAN T3) you'll know just how horrible those airports are for planespotting (especially in the waiting area).  

The airport also offers Wi-Fi. The first 4 hours are free however you can pay extra for "Speedy Wi-Fi", which is largely unnecessary for most daily tasks. 

Another photo of the waiting area - I honestly find myself complaining about the call-to-gate system used in UK airports every time I fly. In short, I find it to be really dumb as it leaves the waiting area crammed full of people while all the gates are deserted. 

At least there's plenty of duty-free stores (and the area overall is very clean and modern). 

Luckily, using both FlightRadar24 and the amazing view of the apron, I was able to find out the gate our plane is parked in, allowing me to escape the waiting area and get to the gate an hour early. 

Walking to the gate.  

The gates. As usual, this area is almost empty (unlike the waiting area).  

We'll be departing out of gate A12 today.  

The seats here. As you can see, the whole area is very modern with huge windows. 

This area of the terminal is where most of the heavies are parked, so let's so some planespotting before boarding. 

Qatar Boeing 777-300ER (A7-BOE) heading to Doha (DOH)

Saudia Boeing 787-9 (HZ-AR23) heading to Jeddah (JED) 

TUI Boeing 767-300ER (G-OBYF) from Ibiza (IBZ) 

And finally, a Jet2 Boeing 757-200 (G-LSAN) heading to Antalya (AYT) 

the flight

Flight time today will be around 4 hours and here's our route for today: 

Here's our plane at the gate.  

Some info about our plane:

Type: Airbus A330-200
Registration: G-VYGL
First flight: 17 July 2014
Age: ~9 years
Config: Y327

Originally delivered to AirTanker as an A330-200MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport), she flew for the RAF with military registration ZZ341 before being converted to a civilian A330-200 in early 2016 and has flown on lease for Jet2 every summer since.

Boarding started on time and was done in groups.  

Quick photo of the cabin during boarding.  

The seatback pocket and tray table.  

The legroom - very good.

First views out of the window.  

Pushback around 25 minutes late (not sure what caused the delay).  

Takeoff! Bye bye Manchester.  

Nice views of the countryside right after takeoff.  

Turning South towards Spain and Portugal.  

I do love the wing view on the A330.  

A little while later, we're already over the Atlantic Ocean.  

Lets have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket which includes: 

 - A safety card

- A duty-free catalogue  

- An inflight magazine 

Jet2's route map and destinations. 

- And a buy-onboard menu. Like all leisure carriers in Europe, there are no complimentary food and drink on Jet2. The menu, however, does offer a wide selection for a reasonable price. 

You can also choose to buy a meal online when you book the flight, which is what I did. Jet2 offers a 15% discount on seats and meal if you buy both at the same time. There's a wide selection available and I chose a vegetarian tortellini, which costed £10 before the discount. 

Here's the meal. Along with the hot meal, there's also a cheese and crackers, a dessert (chocolate mousse) and you can have either a bottle of water or cup of tea/coffee. The meal tasted really good and overall it's very good value for money (especially with the discount). 

The Portuguese coast just South of Lisbon.   

Photo of the toilets, which is relatively clean (considering this was taken around 3 hours into the flight). 

Quite interesting that they've got a reminder for US federal law here even though it's a British plane, I wonder if that's another one of those US-specific laws that all planes flying to the country have to comply. 

Starting our descent into Lanzarote. 

First views of the island with a nice sunset in the background.  

 
On final with the town of Puerto del Carmen in the distance. 

Sadly, with it being night, there wasn't much to see during landing. However, we've arrived at the gate around 20 minutes late.  

lanzarote airport (ace)

With it being so late at night, there were basically no queues at immigration and I was through in under 5 minutes thanks to the automatic gates. 

Baggage reclaim area.  

View outside the airport. The airport is somewhat well served by buses however if you're visiting Lanzarote it's probably best to rent a car.  

That's it for this FR. The next one will be on the flight back (with a nice surprise). See you there! ;)