✈ MY £5 FLIGHT WITH RYANAIR | Southend to Bucharest FR3934 | TRIP REPORT #22

Hello and welcome to SOUTHEND AVIATION!

My first trip report of 2020 is here!

Today we're taking a trip to Bucharest Otopeni from London Southend with Ryanair!

My journey starts from Rayleigh station, best and cheapest way of getting to SEN from Rayleigh is the X30 bus which runs more or less hourly from 05:05AM, getting to SEN at 05:25AM. The train does not operate until around 06:10AM. The bus stops right outside the airport terminal. As I had already checked in for my flight online a few days before, it was straight to security checks for me. On my last 2 trips from Southend security took no time at all, this being due to flying out on either a quiet time of day or a quiet day altogether (Wednesdays). Security was pretty busy today as there were a number of flights departing at that time. But even still, security only took about 10 minutes or so. Gate was announced at 05:55 (40 minutes before STD), Ryanair typically use gates 09 and 10 in the winter. Officially boarding commenced at 06:10, SEN has no jet bridges so all boarding is done by the air stairs (unless of course a passenger needs an ambu-lift).

I reserved seat 5A on this flight to Otopeni, my favourite seat on the 737-800. It allows for a good view of the CFM-56's fanblades without being too far forward. Leg room on Ryanair's new cabins are far better than their old ones. It's worth noting that ALL Ryanair flights from SEN will have the new cabin. This is because Ryanair can only use their Short Field Performance (SFP) 737s which all have the new seats and Boeing Sky interior. Tray table is not adjustable and there are no seat pockets on any seat. Annoying but this is all due to saving time on the ground. Sometimes there is nowt worse than having someone recline their seat throughout the whole flight. Luckily Ryanairs seats do not have any recline, might be annoying for some but I never recline my seat anyway, I hope to see more airlines do this. Once everyone had boarded crew handed out the inflight buy on board magazine and menu. Before we were able to push back we had to wait for the already pushed A320NEO behind us going to Malaga to begin taxi. You can easily hear the thud from the CFM LEAPs starting up on the NEO (an avgeek happy moment). Unlike the 2 earlier departures we departed runway 05, this means taxiing via Charlie and backtracking the runway. For sure the best 737NG engine sound I've heard, I spoke to the flight crew on the ground at OTP and they said we actually took off with 22K (22,000lbf thrust per engine), sounded like full power. Perhaps outside temperature and air density can make a difference in the sound. Our route took us over Netherlands, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and of course Romania. Crew came round with snacks, drinks and duty free goods etc, I had already had breakfast before the flight so didn't need anything. We climbed to a cruise altitude of 41,000ft (FL410). Flight was relatively smooth, a little bit of turbulence over Czechia but nothing too bad. The blanket of snow over Czech and Slovakia made for some great footage! We started our descent from FL410 South East of Cluj, arriving at OTP's RWY 26L and parked on stand 22. A bus then took us to arrivals.

Many thanks to the crew for allowing me to speak with the pilots on arrival and take pictures of the cabin and flight deck. Overall a pretty faultless flight with Ryanair, bare in mind this flight cost me just a fiver!

Flight: FR3934
Airline: Ryanair
Aircraft: Boeing 737-8AS
Power plant: CFM 56-7B
Reg: EI-GDM
Aircraft Age: 2 Years
Seat: 5A
Date: 30/01/2020

Join me in the next few days on my return leg back to Southend with Wizzair on their A320!

Social media networks:

Instagram:
  / southend_aviation_official  

4 engines 4 short haul page:
  / 4engines_4shorthaul  

Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/1466305...

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Southend-Avi...

Check out my flight history: https://my.flightradar24.com/SOUTHEND...

All photos and video are taken by myself unless otherwise stated, if this statement has been abused you WILL be reported! Thank you.