We booked this round-trip flight to Basel as we wanted to visit some friends there we hadn't seen in a long time. The fare was quite reasonable as it was cheaper than the fare EasyJet was offering so it was a no-brainer. Furthermore, I found out that the Swiss was going to start retiring its Avro RJ100 in December 2014, I had to fly in one of these before they were going to be retired!
BCN - BSL LX1935 Y / AVRO RJ100 - 05/12/2014: HERE
BSL - BCN LX1934 Y / AVRO RJ100 - 085/12/2014: http://flight-report.com/en/report-8726.html
We headed to the airport three hours before the flight departure time as we had nothing to do earlier.
T1 terminal in Barcelona is clean, comfortable and enjoyable, there is a lot of natural light and the terminal wasn't too busy, considering it was a school holiday.
I checked FlightRadar24 to know which aircraft we were going to fly to Basel, I just typed our return flight number and found out we were going to fly the HB-IYZ aircraft.
Before heading to the gate, I did some spotting.
Emirates A380 for its daily flight to Dubai.
EgyptAir B738 to Cairo and Qatar A332 to Doha.
Again Qatar A332 to Doha.
It was time to start boarding so we went to the gate.
A couple of pictures of our Avro RJ100 (HB-IYZ).
We boarded the aircraft, my seat was 11A which was very comfortable.
The pitch and the legroom were really good, considering it was a <2 hour flight, this little aircraft was much comfortable than I expected it to be!
View from my window seat 11A.
Windows of the Avro RJ100.
Some more pictures of the cabin interior. There was a lot of space between the seat and the window, great for placing clothes and bags.
I had a great view of the two left wing engines and of the flaps.
Takeoff.
Banking to the left shortly after takeoff in Barcelona.
We quickly reached cruising altitude which was 31000 feet in this flight.
View of the cabin interior configuration (2-3).
Flight attendants served a bagel and a wide selection of drinks. I ordered a Coke.
Shortly after serving a snack and a drink, we were offered some Swiss chocolate bars. They tasted really good!
We flew through the Alps on our way to Basel. Astonishing views.
Sunset while starting our descend into Basel EuroAirport.
I didn't see anything from my window until 10 seconds before landing, there were many clouds and it was pretty foggy in Basel.
One more picture of the cabin interior before leaving the aircraft.
Picture of another Swiss Avro RJ100 from my window seat and from the finger.
We were welcomed to Switzerland by this enormous billboard!
The airport is located in three different countries, you can either depart in the Switzerland part or the France/Germany part. We were going to spend some days in Basel but we had rented a car in the French area as it was much cheaper.
EuroAirport shared by three cities and countries 1. (Basel, Switzerland); 2. (Mulhouse, France); 3. (Freiburg, Germany).
Thanks for this flight report !
It is quite a long flight in an Avro RJ100, isn't it ? The cabin is nice, but getting old.
The food is ok for this kind of flight...
I love the view over the Alps, it's stunning and so beautiful !
Unfortunatly Swiss is gonna leave the Basel station starting March 2014, to be replaced by Eurowings... so bad.
The flight was very comfortable, I didn't find the cabin to be that old! In fact the airplane was from 1998!
The views of the Alps are simply breathtaking, no words to describe them!
Thanks for reading my flight report!
Thanks for this FR.
The Avro is definitely an aircraft to try and they will quickly become rare now.
Really complete service on a flight of this length, and think that you got it for cheaper than EZY :-)
Yes, it is a wonderful aircraft.
The service on such a short flight was superb and the price was great too!
Thanks for reading my FR!
Hi, thanks for sharing this new report! I had no idea Swiss was retiring their Avro RJ100 fleet. Cool that you got to try it before it goes away.
Thanks for reading my FR! It is quite a pity that they are being retired!