Originally Posted by
FRatSTN
VLC-IBZ is also very short, about the same as PIK-LDY.
I've heard before that the actual flying time of the PIK-LDY route can be done in less than 20 minutes if it's a north-westerly departure out of PIK and a westerly arrival into LDY, like it is usually. However this would make the flight back much longer.
I've also heard that they still manage to serve tea, coffee, cold drinks, food and snacks as well as duty free and scratch cards on this flight!!!
FR probably schedule it on the assumption of the longest track miles, (ie. south-easterly departure from PIK and easterly arrival in LDY). This flight often tends to be quite early and I've seen this route get back into PIK the best part of an hour ahead of schedule before and that's probably why.
I used to use the PIK-BHD service fairly regularly up until it was withdrawn. It was always cheaper to use that than use EZY or BE from EDI/GLA/DND, the half price train travel to PIK from anywhere in Scotland helped too!
Quite often the CC would just make an announcement saying if anyone wanted to purchase anything then just press the call button. The short flying time meant it was pretty much pointless on a full flight to even try and go down the aisle as by the time they got half way down, it would be time to reverse, pack it all away again and get ready for landing. I clocked it once as being 45 minutes from door closing in PIK to me leaving the terminal at BHD (never took a bag with me).