On short finals for RWY19 we had some awesome affects coming off the wings. There was some pretty bad fog in Brisbane, but thankfully we made it in with no problems
Taxiing to the international; can’t see too much outside!
Parked next to OJU
We finally got off the aircraft, ending the monster 30 hour trip from SXM! It was tiring, but it actually passed quite quickly, except for the last couple of hours where I was just staring at the time haha! The total flight time was 13 hours 43 minutes. We arrived 10 minutes before our scheduled time of 7am. Customs wasn't too busy, passed through in about 15 minutes. Couldn’t remember what my new bag looked like but I found it! We were lined up with a bunch of other people to have a sniffer dog check us, no problem there so we got out into the arrivals area and found my parents who drove me home. And that was the end of our awesome USA/Caribbean trip!
Conclusion:
Flights:
All my flights were good. Virgin Australia was fantastic as I’ve come to expect from them. The 777s were comfortable and the service was great. Virgin America were also very good, the flight on their A320 was comfortable. American Airlines were fine, I think the interior on their planes is a bit ugly but I'm sure they will improve with their new 777s as well as the other 500 brand new planes they have on order! The seats were comfortable enough, the 737s were fine but the 757 and 767 were really showing their age. But having Wi-Fi on the 757 was good. But I would fly with them again. Winair were great, the flights were only 10-15 minutes but I loved them.
Destinations:
Los Angeles
LA itself isn’t a very nice place, but I am glad I went there and did some of the touristy stuff. Spotting there was the highlight, so many different airlines and aircraft types and the movements are just non-stop!
Seattle
Seattle was a really nice city. Looked pretty clean and I just loved the view from the space needle. It was great to tour the Boeing factory and see the 747, 777 and 787 production lines and seeing all the brand new Boeing planes sitting on the tarmac was great. Boeing Field was good too, was great to see a Concorde and also the first 737 and 747 ever built. Checking out Renton and doing a little spotting at Sea-Tac was good too!
St Maarten
The highlight of the trip without a doubt! I could just chill at the Sunset Bar and Grill all day every day! It is a must visit for all plane spotters! I really want to go back!
St Barths
St Barths is definitely worth a visit, an absolutely beautiful island. And the airport is amazing, that dive approach is awesome! Spotting there is great too; I would go back for sure and probably stay a couple of nights!
Saba
Saba was a nice looking island, but because we stayed at the airport for 5 hours it got very boring. They only get 5 flights a day. It’s definitely worth going there to take off and land on the shortest commercial runway in the world. But I would probably just get the first flight of the day to Saba and then the next flight back, which would give you about 2 hours there.
Well that’s it! Next trip for me is down to Sydney for the day at the end of the month with Tiger Airways, now Tiger Air!
Thanks for reading all my reports for the trip!
Brandon