Introduction-PORTO
Welcome to another trip report! After spending a few amazing days in the beautiful city of Porto ??, it was time to head to our next city to explore which is Madrid ??. Here are some beautiful sites we got to visit while we were there:
There is so much to do in this beautiful city! Would highly recommend a visit if you every happen to be around in this part of Europe.
day of departure
Today we'll be flying on Air Europa on a super short hop to Madrid this evening.
From the city of Porto we'll be taking the public metro system to the airport. I also recommend this form of transportation as it is cheap, clean and very convenient.
Welcome to Francisco Sá Carneiro International Airport. From the center of Porto it took us about 50 minutes or so to get to the airport.
Our flight is AEA1142 with a scheduled departure time of 20:10.
Today's flight to Madrid would be one of my shortest flights I've ever taken. First place being my flight from Porto to Lisbon which I'll be posting on very soon. This flight is only 273 mi or 439 km with a flight time of only 50 minutes.
Since I already checked in online, we headed straight to security check point.
Despite there being a lot of people, security went smoothly and we made it airside in just 15 minutes.
As with all European airports, we had to through an extensive area of duty free shops before actually arriving at the actual gate area.
Something I'm not a fan of in EU airports is that your gates don't get announced until it is literally time for boarding.
In the meantime, let's do some plane spotting ;).
Here we have a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 departing for Bordeaux (BOD) Flight time: 1h 16m
DHL Airbus A300-600F departing for Brussels (BRU) Flight time: 1h 57m
EasyJet Airbus A321NX departing for Nice (NCE) Flight time: 1h 51m
I was pleasantly surprised that where I happened to be plane spotting from was where my flight will be departing from so there was no need to scramble and look at the flight info board.
Not long after I see my aircraft arriving from Madrid.
Some information about my plane:
Flight number: UX 1142
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Registration: EC-LTM
Delivered: December 19, 2012
There was an extremely quick turn around and as soon as the other passengers disembarked, they quickly began scanning our boarding passes.
boarding
A look at the European style business class with just the middle seat blocked.
Made it to my assigned seat of 9B (Middle seat). Since I booked a basic fare there was no free seat selection and you get randomly assigned one upon check-in.
Legroom was pretty good. These economy seats on Air Europa offer 31" pitch, I'm 5'9" or 176cm for reference
When the FA announced that boarding was complete I noticed that the window seat next to me was empty so I scooted over to my new seat ?.
The view outside from seat 9A.
A look at one of the CFMI CFM56-7B engines that power this 737. Each engine can produce up to 32,900lbf!
Boarding was complete rather very quickly and almost felt as if we were boarding a bus as flight attendants wanted us already seated for departure.
Air Europe has IFE's installed only on their widebody 787 jets and none on there 737 fleet.
A look at the tray table.
Somebody looks happy to be leaving for Madrid this evening ?.
As mentioned before, flight time to Madrid will be a very short 55 minutes. Flight load was about 75% with a lot of passengers connecting in Madrid for various South American cities as I later found out.
pushback/takeoff
You can check out the full taxi and takeoff video below:
Flight route preview was displayed on overhead monitors.
takeoff
We'll be taking off on runway 35.
Until next time Portugal! Hope to visit you again soon. Flying over the Portuguese town of Vila Real
mid flight
Cabin lights were briefly turned on for a quick buy on board service. From my understanding Air Europa has no complimentary items on all inter European flights, similar to TAP Air Portugal although they at least give you a complimentary cup of water.
Let's take a look at the seatback contents
You have your safety card.
Duty free magazine with snacks and drinks menu.
Lastly, Air Europa's inflight magazine.
A few minutes later the pilot came on the PA and announced that we are starting our initial descent.
The city lights of Madrid started to come into view.
descent/landing
You can check out the whole landing and taxi video in the video below:
Landing lights were turned on.
We'll be landing on runway 33L
Welcome to Madrid!
arrival at gate
One last look at my seat.
Deplaning…
This concludes this trip report! Thanks for reading :)
It's so funny last year everyone was going to Lisbon (me included), but this year it was all about Porto! Portugal is an amazingly beautiful country and the people are genuinely kind and helpful in my experience.
Legroom is really very decent for a narrowbody and it's always great to have an empty seat next to you. Plus the seats look well-padded, which is a nice change from the usual ironing boards on most narrowbodies within Europe.
I assume the streaming IFE wasn't working on this aircraft as Air Europa should have streaming entertainment to personal devices on all of their 737s. It is a shame that they don't even offer free water. But sadly, that's become common, even among legacy carriers in Europe.
Thanks for sharing!
I know right! Portugal in general is a beautiful country. I've been there two times already this year alone from the US so it shows how in love I am with the country ?. Yes I forgot to mention in the trip report that there wasn't any form of entertainment available on the flight. Thanks for reading!