Trip Report: TT BNE-MEL-BNE (Photos)

[Brandon Giacomin]

Morning all,

Just over a week ago I went to Melbourne for the day thanks to Tiger Airways extremely low fares

I have done four daytrips, one to Rockhampton (December 2010) and two to Sydney (March and May 2011), so I thought that for my next trip I should go down to Melbourne. Four airlines fly from Melbourne to Brisbane, Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar and Tiger. At first I was planning on flying with Jetstar to MEL on an A321 for the first time which was $69 and then back on Virgin costing $79, so all up including taxes it would have been over $150, a very good price, but I thought I could do better, so I left it for the time being. And my waiting paid off, in late May just before my second trip to Sydney I was doing my usual look on the net for cheap flights and on the Tiger Airways website I saw that they were doing flights where you just pay taxes, and BNE-MEL was $22!! Tiger Airways fly from Brisbane to Melbourne three times a day, so I wanted to fly on the early morning flight to MEL (TT5203) and return to Brisbane on the late afternoon flight (TT5206) this would give me four and a half hours in Melbourne.

So I had to find a day where I could do this and the first day I looked up (June 18) I could . So I asked my parents if I could go down to Melbourne and they said yes. I decided to leave booking the trip until the next day, so ask could ask my friend Josh if he wanted to do another daytrip. So I asked him at school the next day and he said he would like to go, so that night he asked his parents and they said yes. So that night we booked, we would be flying on TT5203 departing Brisbane at 0855 and arriving in Melbourne at 1120 and TT5206 departing Melbourne at 1550 and arriving in Brisbane at 1800, and all up including the credit card fee and seat selection fee it cost just over $70!!! I was looking forward it.

About a week before the trip Josh started getting nervous as he had never flown Tiger and had heard bad things about however I told him they were fine and that it would be a great trip. The night before the trip I decided to go on to the Melbourne Airport website to see if our flight was on-time, and unfortunately it was an hour and a half late, this shortened our time in Melbourne down to about 3 hours Originally we were going to go in to Melbourne and have a walk around but with the delay I let Josh know and said that we should give it a miss. As I wasn't sure if we would have enough time, we would have to wait for the bus, then the 20 minute bus ride there and back and we needed to be back at the airport an hour before the flight so we wouldn't have had much time in the city.

June 18th, the day had arrived, I woke up at about 6am, made sure I had everything packed and ready for my quick trip, also had another look at the MEL website and the flight was still an hour and a half late. Left the house at 7am and arrived at the airport at about 7:30am and said goodbye to mum. The original departure time was 0855 but this was now 1020, so I could have left the house later but I thought I would get to the airport about an hour before the original departure time just incase. Met Josh at the Qantas end of the terminal, went straight to security as we had already done the online check-in and up to the boarding gates.

First up we went to the Qantas end of the terminal where we found Boeing 737-800 VH-VXD (QF981 to ASP) at Gate 19, a Boeing 737 at Gate 20 however I can't remember the reg, might have been VH-TJZ off to Canberra, Boeing 737-400 VH-TJF (QF661 to ADL, flown on her from CBR-BNE back in 2007 ) at Gate 21, Boeing 737-800 VH-VYL (QF509 to SYD) at Gate 22 and Boeing 767-300ERs VH-OGJ (QF513 to SYD), VH-OGS (QF651 to PER) and VH-OGK (QF589 to PER) at Gate's 23, 24 and 25 respectively. There were also others but I didn't get any photos of them and I can't remember the rego's, I think one of them was the very new Boeing 737-800 VH-VZM off to Mt Isa, I think there was also another B737.

Next we went down to the Virgin end where we found Boeing 737-700 VH-VBJ (had the whole day off) at an off bay and Embraer 190 VH-ZPL (DJ702 to Hobart) at a gate. I think there was one or two other aircraft but I didn't get photos of them and can't remember the rego's. So after looking around both the Qantas and Virgin ends of the terminal I went to the comon user section where I would be boarding my flight to MEL. Aircraft parked at the common user section included, Jetstar Airbus A320s VH-JQX (JQ811 to SYD), VH-VQI (JQ830 to PPP), VH-VQK (JQ561 to MEL) and Strategic Airlines Airbus A320 VH-YQA (VC2010 to PER, re-positioning?), I also noted brand new Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 VH-YFF over at the Virgin hangars.

So Josh and myself found a seat facing the runway and did some spotting waiting for our flight. Noteworthy aircraft included Emirates Boeing 777-300ER A6-ECQ (EK434 to AKL), Qantaslink Q400 VH-QOW 'Dubbo Zoo livery' (QF2403 from EMD), Etihad Airways Airbus A330-200 A6-EYG (EY470 from AUH via SIN), Air New Zealand Airbus A320 ZK-OJN (NZ828 to DUD), Eva Air Airbus A330-200 B-16309 (BR315 from TPE), Norfolk Air Boeing 737-300 VH-NLK (ON334 from NLK), Singapore Airlines Airbus A330-300 9V-STQ (SQ256 to SIN) and Jetconnect Boeing 737-800 ZK-ZQE (QF123 to AKL). Anyway, enough talking for now, time for some photos.

Qantas B763 VH-OGS at Gate 24 being prepared for her five and a half hour jouney to Perth later on in the morning


Qantaslink Dash 8-300 VH-TQY arrives with brand new Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 VH-YFF in the background at the Virgin hangars


Four Qantas tails (from closest to furthest), B738 VH-VYL and B763's VH-OGJ, VH-OGS and VH-OGK


Virgin Blue E190 VH-ZPL and B737 VH-VBJ


Emirates B77W A6-ECQ taxies out to RWY19 for departure to Auckland


Etihad Airways A332 A6-EYG arrives from Abu Dhabi via Singapore


Eva Air A332 B-16309 arrives from Taipei


I managed to get good photos of Etihad and Eva as Josh was on balus using his iPhone so when they landed I was ready, I had a look on his iPhone to see if TT5202 from MEL was on yet as this aircraft would then fly us to MEL. It was, and it was VH-VNC, my second timeon this a/c. At about 0930, VH-VNC touched down on RWY19, just over an hour late, must have made up some time in the air. Singapore Airlines A333 9V-STF (SQ255 from SIN) arrived shortly after the tiger. Here are some more photos.

Tiger Airways Australia Airbus A320 VH-VNC arrives on RWY19


VH-VNC at Gate 32 with Jetstar Airbus A321 VH-VWT (JQ560 from MEL) in the background


Just before 10am, the first boarding call was made for boardmefirst passengers and passengers with children or passengers needed assistance boarding, followed by passengers in the back 10 rows and then the rest of us Saw Air Niugini B763 P2-PXW taxing out to RWY19 whilst boarding