Well in that case I reckon Jet2 should drop all their canaries flights, we saw how much hassle it caused back in '77 when Las Palmas got closed and all those aircraft were diverted

Plus Jet2 fly to the canaries much more regularly, with larger aircraft, which must hugely increase the chances of large amounts of disruption in the event of bad weather

Come on... Really? If it was that bad, why would anyone fly into Funchal at all? Or any other challenging airports for that matter

Your been a bit silly with your comment regarding the canaries totally different when it comes to wex diversions the main one is ACE with easy diversions to FUE nothing like loosing approx 6 rotations and hoteling 180 pax also the Canary Islands bring a lot more money to an airline than FNC

Nearest diversion to FNC is Porto Santo, an ex-NATO airfield with 3000m runway, decent facilities and hotels on the island. It's about 50 miles NE of FNC.

Well if there is a prize for stating the obvious you win

My point is ... there are other route options available with a lot less costly wex diversions of course jet2 make money by flying there that was not the debate the argument against FNC operationally is your diversions options are far away with no option for ground transportation taking an aircraft out of operation for many sectors over a number of days in my own experience.

Agree not the most suitable though most wex diversions would prefer to divert to an airport you operate from hence why jet2 normally divert to the Canary Islands or Portugal.

Porto Santo would be used for a quick 'splash and dash' rather than a night stop. The benefit of Porto Santo is that it's close. Compared to Faro you'll get another hour and a half of holding fuel. So if the weather is marginal at Funchal you're better off holding for as long as possible, ping into PXO, have another go at FNC then clear of to the Canaries. But, it's only got 7 stands available and it fills up quickly so that isn't always possible.

First picture of G-JZBA

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/8723462

Tuesday when the lazy French decided to have another day doing anything but work, even their own President calls them slackers. We were stuck at FUE for 3 hours sat on the plane waiting for a slot back to Stansted.Fair did Jet2 were excellent at looking after all of us. But other Jet2 flights did a lot better.One was the 757 back to Leeds which went back on a tango route, via Ireland etc.

Question ,is that ,because the 75 drivers are qualified on oceanic whilst the 738 are not? ..our route back was Bay of Biscay,across the Brest Peninsula, channel etc..

[QUOTE=paully;9923531]Tuesday when the lazy French decided to have another day doing anything but work, even their own President calls them slackers. We were stuck at FUE for 3 hours sat on the plane waiting for a slot back to Stansted.Fair do Jet2 were excellent at looking after all of us. But other Jet2 flights did a lot better.One was the 757 back to Leeds which went back on a tango route, via Ireland etc with minimum delay.

Question .......is that ,because the 75 drivers are qualified on oceanic whilst the 738 are not? ..our route back was Bay of Biscay,across the Brest Peninsula, channel etc ??

None of the routings from the Canaries via the Tango routes (T16, T216 and T9) require any special training. Some additional equipment is required though. T16 requires aircraft to have two HF radios and two independent means of navigation. The aircraft based at Stansted meet these requirements. What you have to bare in mind is that these routes are procedurally controlled which means greater separation between aircraft. Add in all the airlines filing via the Tango routes to avoid French airspace and capacity quickly disappears. In this instance you were probably unfortunate. Jet2 will always try to get passengers on board and submit a "ready" message to try and bring ATC slots forward.

At least Jet2 actually try to get all their flights off when they can, compared to other airlines who seem happy to chop a few out, thouh i do suspect a few of those, would be due to capacity on route.

I do get why Jet2 have their planes full early to take advantage of earlier Slots when possible, but this can backfire if it isn't possible. A friend was coming back from PMI and was on the plane for 2 hours before they were allowed to takeoff. Not the most comfortable place to be couped up, but it could have be worse.

In my view, that's preferable to missing your slot for x hours because boarding was delayed until it became close to the slot becoming available but then it took longer than anticipated to board ll passengers due to someone missing the call whilst in the bar/shops and then the rigmarole of offloading bags if they checked in hold luggage and incurring additional costs as a result.

Slots change regularly, so if you aren't ready to push and start then you are goosed. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Thanks for the info..please don't get me wrong I think the Jet2 crew did a fantastic job, and I fully understand the reasoning behind having us on board. The Captain was Chris Fleming who invited the kids to look in the flight deck, explained everything that was going on..Attended personally to some nervous types and let everyone use their mobiles etc until the appropriate time..

Free refreshments and water dished out etc and we were simply looked after well..Many pax hadn't been with them before(new route and that) but will certainly be going with them again...Mind you, you wouldn't have wanted to be French on that flight

First of the next batch, G-JZBA, scheduled for delivery from Seattle into Leeds tomorrow morning.

Jet2 have been given a 5 star rating for their on time performance, making them the most punctual in the UK, according to OAG

https://www.oag.com/on-time-performance-star-ratings

Well done Jet2.

I see that Jet2 has a leased A320 from SmartLynx based at Birmingham (YL-LCP) since 12th October. Extra capacity to cover the Monarch demise?

I assume short term until a few more of the new B737-800's arrive.

Posn flight
 

Why are the press making such an issue on what is presumably a positioning flight outbound at this time of the year. There are loads of flights that go out empty to pick up returning passengers at the end of the season.

Jet2 passenger who paid £46 for a flight from Glasgow to Crete gets whole plane to herself | The Independent

Remember that happening to me many many years ago with Dan Air to Athens on a B727 2 of us at front and 2 at back for balancing and they had over catered so were given 3 meals each, happy days