Just back from Bulgaria with First Choice, flew from GLA-BOJ on B757-200 G-OOBF both ways.

The flight on the way out was very good, one of the best, the pre-booked seats were definatly worth the extra because there were so many families getting split up and sat a few rows apart.

In flight entertainment was pretty good too on both legs, which I didn't expect. The meal was superb aswell, although on the return flight the cottage pie was a bit dry.

One thing that I found annoying though was that the crew would often leave the TV screens blank for a long time between programmes instead of displaying the inflight map/info screens. One the return leg this morning they didn't show the map or the info screens once, but had about 10/15 minutes of black screen after the movie.

The pilot updated us quite regularly on the outbound flight, but on the inbound, not surprisingly due to it being early morning, they didn't speak much at all.

Overall, a great airline and a great holiday company too,will use them again.

First Choice Acquisition
 

It seems First Choice are expanding their portfolio again. Citywire news article

New First Choice acquisition targets 55-75 market in US

First Choice Holidays is continuing its policy of expanding in specialist niche tourist markets with the £27 million acquisition of a US outfit concentrating on escorted holidays for those aged between 55 and 75.

It is taking over Los Angeles-based YMT Vacations founded 39 years ago by Frank J. and Lenore Dupuis to offer specialist US escorted tours for 'boomers to seniors', currently the fastest growing age sector of the North American market.

YMT offers 15 different US itineraries and expects 25,000 customers this year which it will take to places like Alaska, Hawaii, the Canadian Rockies, California and the West, the National Parks, New England and the Annual Rose Parade.

First Choice (FCD) chief executive Peter Long says YMT fits his acquisition criteria as it in a growth segment with a clearly defined, efficient and sustainable business model. The shares fell 1p to 226.75p giving the group a stock market valuation of £1.2 billion.

Both student travel and escorted tours were niches identified by First Choice, but until the YMT deal it seemed to be placing more emphasis on impoverished students and backpackers.

Long says that while YMT's customers like flexible travel requirements, they also prefer the security and sense of community offered by escorted group travel.

'It has an excellent reputation for customer service and is a market leader in this segment of the market' he said.

YMT founder and chairman Frank Dupuis said that being part of a group like First Choice was exciting in terms of growth potential, new areas of activity and a support network for his management team.



PP

I have recently travelled to Cancun Mexico with FCA from EMA and must say wasvery impressed with the service recieved on board and the new star class service.
The seats were comfortable with plenty of legroom and good choice of tv on personal seatback tv with a sky map service showing current position and route just a word of warning this service doesnt and wont work on BL aircraft.
Just a couple of questions now I hope somebody can help with
How long a stopver do the crew normally get in Mexico with it being a 10 hour+ sector ?
For the EMA flight where are the crew from ? Are they based or MAN,LGW crew.
Also I noticed that 3 members of flightdeck crew are taken due to duty hours where does the spare member sit in the jump seat or in the premium cabin and was it just coincedence that both my flights had snr F/O or is that the normal.

I recently flew from MAN to PMV, talked to one of the cabin crew and i was informed they has 2 nights in a hotel then they flew to Mexico to fly another one back...........maybe they do something similar!!
We had a scottish crew looking after us for the return journey!.
Hope this helps

you can also do a bullet to CUN with just under about 20 hours

737 James,

We do a lot of different stops in Mexico. If its a short stay then we take 3 pilots due to Flight Time Limitations....a 'bullet'. I think the EMA-CUN flight is usually MAN or BHX crew but can be from anywhere.

I dont think we have any F/O's on the 767 who arent SFO's. Most of the 767's have an adjustable 3rd crew seat in the cockpit. Sometimes we might use a seat in Premier but I would suggest this isnt the norm.

Glad you like the new 767 layout! :ok:

Cheers,
MAN based 767 Capt.

Many Thanks for the reply Aileron thats how i thought the crewing worked I know they were Man on return as all had strong northern accents.
what is the reason why the Sky map service doesnt work on BL aircraft ? I know the F/O on the return said on all other aircraft if you forget to switch it on before departure you cant switch it on once airborne.
I was very impressed with both sets of flightcrew who gave the usual PA's but also gave plenty of information on routing and tech info like fuel uplift,weight at take off and special thanks to capt James Allison who on our return kept us upto to date with all the cities we flew over on East coast of Usa and a nice bank either side on departure from Cun with nice views of resort.

737James,

The EMA-CUN sector is operated by LGW Flt Deck, and cabin crew. They are scheduled to operate CUN-LGW the next day, so as the crew are unacclimatised to local time, the rotation operates with 3 pilots. (Flight Time Limitations allow longer duty with 3 rather than 2 flight deck when un-acclimatised).

The CUN-EMA sector is flown by an all MAN crew, who have operated MAN-CUN on the Sunday, again single night in CUN and then operate CUN-EMA. This rotation operates again with 3 pilots for the same reason as the above rotation.

The SFB and PUJ departures are crewed by BHX pilots, and either BHX or EMA cabin crew.

30W

So who flies the PMV-MAN sector??

PMV-MAN is operated by LGW crew who operate LGW-PMV on the Wednesday and then operate the PMV-MAN on the Thursday (during summer season of 06 anyhow....)

737James,

Its a small world......the chap who flew you home (Capt J Allinson) is me! Glad you enjoyed the flight anyway! :ok: It gets a little disheartening when all we hear is complaints. :ugh:

I dont know why BL's skymap doesnt work. The next time I fly it I will have a chat with the Engineers.

Happy flying.

PS I havent had a chance to use the IFE yet. Ive heard its pretty good. :E

Well yes that is a small world isnt it but was a good flight with quicker routing back and nice smooth landing. One of the hosties on the return to Ema was singing your praises saying how nice you were cant remember her name but had blonde hair.
I presume a different crew position the aicraft down from Man to Ema if its a LGW crew doing the flight.
I was talking to some BY crew at my hotel were saying how bad the legroom was compared to FCA, I would be interested to know why the map doesnt work on BL when you get a chance I would imagine something to to do with specs on refit, you should try the IFE next time you get the chance.
Well back off to work with Baby tommorow just hoping for nice easy day to get back into the groove we complain about 5 sector days but sounds good compared to your bullet runs.

I think they are having a few problems with the SkyMap system. Friend of mine went LGW-MLE on G-OOBK in June and said the map never worked.

The SkyMap didn't work properly on 'BM either at the weekend returning HUX-MAN (nor did it on outbound MAN-HUX two weeks before, also 'BM).

Once the flight got going (hour or two in) the Map did start to report the correct position but I think the computer was confused as to where HUX was as it showed our routing MAN-HUX and HUX-MAN as a red line from MAN to the "middle" of the world (zero degrees north, zero degrees west)!

Local time for HUX was either blank or showed 56460:00 or something similarly crazy throughout the flight, and the estimated time to destination and ETA fluctuated backwards and forwards by about an hour throughout both flights (even though both flights took almost exactly the time the pilots said they would +/- a few mins).

I thought these systems just took data straight from the FMC?

Great service and product though in the premium cabin, couldn't fault it. Excellent crews both ways too, flight deck and cabin. We had 4 flight deck crew on the way home for some reason (2 Capts / 2 SFO's), one of whom sat in premium all the way back, never went in flightdeck.

On my return on BM aircraft it said exactly the same as localiser green hassaid the first map i think was showing as it changed from night to dark, the 2nd was a map with range of around 300nm i would imagine,3rd only appared over land more exact and localised i noticed this showed all airports including us air bases and the last green just had had weird reference as described and time of departure point.
Got friends returning on AN well thats what was in when i taxied past this morning at EMA i will ask them if that worked or had same bug.

G-OOAN skymap is on the verge of going as well. Just returned from MLE on it and it was alright up to about Dubai and then the map completely dissapeared for the rest of the flight and the time to dest stopped at 8:20, clearly there is something affecting the entire fleet with the skymap.

i've asked this question before but does anyone know how the brs longhaul routes will work? some of the flights are fortnightly so how will it work is it operated by brs crew's or will other bases be involved? if it is to be brs they will have to have a massive recruitment drive to allow for crew's being downroute on layovers as not enough crew based there at present to operate a 767 aswell as 2 shorthaul a/c.:ok:

At the moment the BRS longhaul is going to be operated by MAN crew, the BRS crew are feeling rather upset shall we say, crew managers in BRS say they're trying their best to get it changed, it must be rather disheartening for them as they step on to their BRS-PMI and a MAN crew are going on to do BRS-SFB! The BRS programme is selling very very well though and looks certain for the commencement date for the SFB and possibly the POP to come back to febuary, not so sure on the Cuba route, apparently its selling but not as well as the other 2, but fair play to FC for giving it a go, maybe CUN would of been a safer option for them, but FCA like to test the market and usually come out laughing so we'll see i guess.

thanks for reply thought it was too good to be true nice small regional base to operate longhaul i'd be gutted also if i was brs crew! i was looking to put in for transfer to brs but think i'll wait until exeter opens as better for me as want to return home! wont hold my breath though but i really have had enough of creepy crawley!:ok:

heard confirmed FCA are basing 2 a/c at EXT this winter - any ideas how many rotations a week are planned and if there are any new desintinations?

fly20

REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D my god i must put in writing that i wish to transfer if and when a proper base opens!! thanks for that info. any idea when that may happen as i know cwl and brs crew's did most of the flying from ext by night stopping or w patterns ;)