#11 out of 22 Low-cost airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
349 reviews
Upon completion of my shift the previous night, my employer booked me on a flight back home from Girona to Rotterdam the following day. Transavia is currently offering a direct flight per day to at least one of the Dutch airports and wednesday turned out to be Rotterdam's turn, which was beneficial for me as it is the closest airport to my home.
As my employer has a contract with one of the hotels (given that Girona is our maintenance base), it was only a short five-minute walk to the terminal, which didn't appear to be that busy. The walk itself was pleasant too as it turned out to be around 18 a 20 degrees Celsius.
Upon entering the terminal, Girona is kind of Spanish decorated with only two flights departing around the same time with the longest lines waiting for the Transavia flight….. This also took ages to complete and I was finally checked in with my hold luggage about 30 minutes prior to departure time with still quite a few people behind me in queu…. It's even more abysmal if you imagine that I'd arrive 2 hours prior to departure, so the whole process took over 1.5 hours to complete…
I asked one of the ground attendants for the reason of the long waiting lines and she kindly told me that a few groups of 10 or more people decided to stand in different positions in lines and they had to verify each and every individual who was related to that specific group as they were unable to check them in otherwise. Kind of odd, but it explains the slow check-in progress.
Security was a breeze and had no waiting times at all. After clearing security, you will end up in the common duty free area to cross to find your gate.
After the first duty free shop to cross, you could now split your direction to your designated gates with a few eateries and some additional shops around.
Given that Ryanair is the main user of Girona Airport, it is apparent that Girona prefers Transavia flights given by the choice of colour of their seating availability at the gates. :)
By the time I was at the gate, the Transavia Boeing 737-800 was already disembarking it's passengers from Rotterdam.
Girona's apron was pretty quiet with a few business jets and two cargo aircraft. An Antonov 12 of Cavok Air on the photo below being the most exotic bird on the apron and a Metro III of Flightline S.L. in the far left of the photo above.
Boarding was called about 15 minutes past our scheduled boarding time, which I already assumed given the long process of Check-in.
The flight to Rotterdam today would be performed by PH-HZG. An 23.1 year old (at time of flying) Boeing 737-800 who has been solely in service of Transavia Holland as of March 2000. It however was often wet leased to other operators such as Air Berlin & Sun Country Airlines by Transavia in their low-seasons.
A fun fact for me personally is that I've been flying on this bird as a passenger before when it was delivered to Transavia in 2000.
Upon entering I was greeted in a not so enthusiatic way (not rude either though) by one of the flight attendants and made my way to seat 27A…. Padding of the seat was good and well above standards, however this also reduces your legroom by a lot… The seat width was also reduced given that the fuselage of the aircraft becomes smaller in the aft section… Luckily enough this would not be an issue on my flight as the middle seat remained empty.
The window was not alligned with the seat either, though gives you a good view.
When seated and the cabin was slowly filling up, the Captain checked in with us informing us that we would be delayed by about 30 a 40 minutes or so due to the slow process here at Girona Airport. I'm pretty sure this was due to the fact that check-in was very slow and that they were still busy loading the luggage of the passengers.
Took a picture of Transavia's remarkable green cabin.
The old-school overhead panel with individual air vents. Despite the aircraft being 23 years old, the cabin was in a reasonable state.
Pushback was eventually engaged about 18 minutes past our scheduled departure time with a short taxi ride to Runway 01, which meant a northerly departure directly towards Rotterdam.
Northbound departure as previously said with a view over the ''Parque Natural de la Zona Volcánica de la Garrotxa''
By the time we cross the Pyrenees, the flight attendants left their seats to attend to their station and to begin with the Buy on Board service for today's flight. The BoB menu of Transavia isn't particularly huge nor is it that expensive if you compare it to airliners like Ryanair.
The literature of Transavia seat pocket consists of the mandatory yet usual safety card for their Boeing 737-800 fleet, a BoB Menu and Transavia's in-flight magazine. The edition of Spring 2023 is promoting Zakynthos at the fullest with a few interesting articles about the Azores. Though most of the magazine consists of their duty free goods.
When the flight attendants came buy whether we were interested to buy some snacks or drinks, I simply opted for a sparkling water to stay hydrated throughout the flight, which costs you about 3 euros.
Enjoying the view when sipping my water.
With about 30 minutes to landing, you can see the two flight attendants in the far front of the cabin completing their buy-on-board service, which took them about 75 minutes to complete or so. Not a lot of people opted to buy something, yet somehow service was rather slow as the flight attendants took their time to answer questions of passengers.
About 20 minutes to landing, the flight crew checked in with us to confirm we were approaching Rotterdam with a delay of 30 minutes, gave us a weather update and thanked us for flying with Transavia.
Unfortunately the sunny weather of Spain was now changed to the Dutch depressing weather.
Short final of Runway 24.
Touchdown!
After a short taxi to one of the first stands, disembarkation followed soon after and we were transported to the terminal by bus.
Before grabbing my luggage, I decided to pay a quick visit to Rotterdam's airport and I thought this to be a nice feature. Instead of a mirror, they painted the wall with a picture of the 737-Cockpit (mirror was available though in the toilet).
The baggage claim of Rotterdam-The Haque Airport is rather small with insufficient seating, yet some minor things are added to cheer the area up. Luggage was already on belt by now given that I had the last bus departing to the terminal, so props to the handling for that speedy delivery.
Grabbed my bag and decided to catch the first bus to Rotterdam Central Station to be on my way home as soon as possible after being gone for 2.5 weeks.
Thanks for stopping by!
Transavia had it's ups and downs. The very slow check-in was abysmal and well-below standards. The flight attendants were not enthusiastically helping us, but would perform their duties up to standard and took their time to provide us with the service required. Seating was decent with good padding, yet this also meant that legroom was reduced (which I didn't mind). The BoB Menu is not the most expensive one nor is it extensive, so all in all it was a decent A to B flight, but not memorable.
4 Comments
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Rotterdam & Eindhoven aren't really any option for KLM to be frank as both of the airports are operating on their cap limit and do not allow more scheduled flights due to noise restrictions. Groningen (GRQ) is a lot to be desired and many airlines failed to operate here given that Munster (FMO) which is about a hour ride from there offers a much larger variety of destinations. Maastricht (MST) seems to function better as a cargo airport now Liege is getting full :)
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Thanks for stopping by
I have to admit I love how most Spanish airports look very similar! It makes your life very easy, because if you've been to one, you've seen all of them!
That looks tight! And that's coming from somone who flies with VY more than he would like to...
Thanks for posting a report of a secondary airport in the Netherlands, as normally the only thing we see is AMS.
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It's tight, yet the comfort level for me was personally more pleasant than VY with those ironing boards.
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