My flight report Ryanair FR8742 Malta - Bournemouth, UK 5th January 2017

Airline: Ryanair
Flight: FR8742
Type: Boeing 737-800
Registration: EI-EMR
Flight of origin: Malta
Destination: Bournemouth, UK
Flight time: 3 hours & 20 minutes

WARNING! If you are a Ryanair fan, I suggest you avoid this report.

I arrived in Malta at 06:10am still pitch black in the Maltese Winter morning. I boarded the flight full of passengers heading to Bournemouth, UK most are all British Tourists heading home, some of us Maltese are on the flight. The boarding procedures went well really on-time for the flight to close & we departed Malta just after our departure time at 07:10am.  

I was hoping to get on-board the modern cabin for Ryanair I felt excited about seeing a brand new cabin in the 21st century like Norwegian Air Shuttle and Southwest Airlines later 737 Next Generation aircraft, unfortunately Ryanair's E registration still has the old style makes me feel sick. If Ryanair has some sense on older Ryanair fleets, I suggest they change the cabin like the F registrations. On the overhead compartment you'll see adverts making like a public transport it's not on there even in my July flight with Ryanair. So I'm guessing it cost Ryanair a lot of money to replace advert cards on the overhead lockers?

And so I left Malta with a beautiful sunrise around the Maltese Airspace. After I see the sunrise I went to sleep. The cabin service I didn't comment because I was sleeping half of the flight and play games on my phone while the cabin crew served the passengers I could say that the cabin stinks like deep fried food. Compare to Air Malta economy food served light snacks (roll) I really like the smell similar to my KLM Cityhopper and British Airways flight with lovely sandwich smell (these three airline food smells nice) but with Ryanair you are buying cheap food that has no flavor on sandwiches, pizza, baguette with bacon etc. Three years ago on Ryanair I bought bacon roll the bacon doesn't looked cooked it tasted horrible. Sometimes every time I travel on Ryanair, it somehow makes me feel a bit ill for some reason I don't want to explain. The seats are so uncomfortable I suffered a back pain for couple of days similar in July 2016 so I stayed in bed then headed back to college. 

I want to talk about Cabin Crew because as a Cabin Crew Student, sometimes I like to compare on different airlines on different aircraft types what they do. I like their uniforms both men & women style but the communication of their accent is OK ish don't get me wrong, there are decent Ryanair cabin crew out there with good accents depend where you live. On my recent flight, the cabin crew announcer talked a little bit fast she got it right & her voice needs to sound a bit clear if I was a Ryanair cabin crew doing passenger announcement, I rather take it slow so my passengers understand what I say not talking fast; that happened on my British Airways flight from Malta to London Gatwick, UK last year in January.

We we come closer to the UK, I spotted two aircraft by me one was Swiss Airbus A330-300 heading to Zurich, Switzerland it was a bit far compare to this photo, a Thomas Cook Airlines Airbus A330-200 possibly heading to London Gatwick, UK from Cape Town, South Africa Thomas Cook's new seasonal flight last month. I like to see Thomson can compete Thomas Cook to South Africa with their Boeing Dreamliners one day. 

And finally I arrived in Bournemouth, UK at 09:35am. Unfortunately the landing rough yet again on runway 26 back in July 2016 I had that experience with my friend this is the same issue the runway is small we landed a bit fast with full reverse thrust and auto-brake seems to be at level 2. I'm not sure what Thomson Airways and EasyJet Switzerland lands like in Bournemouth by looking on YouTube they seems to land nicely if Flybe made a return to Bournemouth I think the landing back then was great for a Dash 8 to land but if Ryanair lands in Southampton, UK that means it would make a hard landing? Airbus A320 and all Boeing 737 Classics & Next Generation can land in Southampton the runway is smaller than Bournemouth does it mean it must land hard? apart from that, I will not travel with Ryanair if I can however because flights on Full Service is expensive I have to risk it going with Ryanair possibly I might have to do again this year encase of emergency.  

My score overall from Aircraft Aviation in Europe:

• Cabin - 4/10
• Hygienic - 7/10
• Food - N/A 
• Cabin Crew 8/10
• Service N/A 

Overall: 8.1/10

Don't forget I have a Full Flight video on YouTube.

Afriqiyah Airways 5A-ONB Hijacking report 23rd December 2016

As we entered 2017 I like to make a final statement on what happened of Afriqiyah Airways Flight 209 on 23rd December 2016.

Afriqiyah Airways 5A-ONB Airbus A320 new to Afriqiyah Airway in 2007 taken 2nd January 2017.

Arline: Afriqiyah Airways
Registration: 5A-ONB
Flight: 8U 209
Flight of origin: Sahba, Libya
Destination: Tripoli, Libya

Flight 209 was on a domestic flight from Sahba to Tripoli Mitiga in Libya with 118 passengers & 7 crew it departed Sahba at 08:10 local time due to land in Tripoli at 09:20. Before descending to Tripoli the hijackers named Suhah Mussa and Ahmed Ali one hijacker considered to be pro-Gaddafi forcing the captain to divert & land in Malta 11:32am at runway 31 vacating by runway 05 the engines was still running while the aircraft was surrounded by the Maltese military. The weapons have been reported that the hijackers were carrying a hand grenade to threaten to blow up the plane, one pistol and there was another second hand that was found on the plane however the weapons are "replica."

The two hijackers surrendered with the green Gaddafi-era flag later surrender to the Maltese Authorities then got arrested. Later that day, the passengers & crew flew back to Libya another Afriqiyah Airways plane while 5A-ONB was seized by the Maltese Government for investigation it was confirmed that the aircraft is safe to fly it flew back to Tripoli, Libya in 6th January 2017. However this isn't the first time Malta had hijacking incident.

EgyptAir Flight 648

23rd - 24th November 1985 Flight 648 from Athens, Greece to Cairo, Egypt was hijacked by three Palestinians they were heavily armed and grenades. The Aircraft was SU-AYH Boeing 737-200. The hijackers want to land in Libya but due to negative publicity, Malta was chosen. 62 passengers including 2 hijackers died 38 passengers survived including one hijacker.

Air Malta Flight 830

9th June 1997 Flight 830 from Malta - Istanbul, Turkey was hijacked 20 minutes after the flight by two Turkish Nationals later diverted to Cologne, Germany. One of the men entered the cockpit showing the pilots a dynamite sticks strapped on his chest threaten to blow up the whole aircraft. The Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca was sentence to life in prison in Italy after trying to assassinate Pop John Paul II in 1981. The German police found no explosives on the aircraft this was Air Malta's first ever hijacking flight in aviation history other than the 1981 explosion of an Air Malta plane in Cairo, Egypt we'll come to that part in the future blog. The hijacking Air Malta flight was 9H-ABF Boeing 737-200 still active with Avior Airlines YV2998 in Venezuela.

As we come to the recent hijacking of Afriqiyah Airways Flight 209, this will be part of our history in Malta International Airport hoping this will not happen again in the future.