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Old 23rd April 2011, 10:10 PM
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Brock Little Brock Little is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Gold Coast, Australia
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Runway 34L switched to 16R just before we left.




One of my favourite shots of the day!

Sadly, it was now time to catch another cab and head to the airport for my flight home. When we arrived at T2, Andrew alerted me that 128UA was about to depart. We ran like hell down the length of the terminal, me leaving Andrew behind and making some security personnel think we needed to go to T3...but in the end, we made it! Getting a shot of it would be tricky as a gap was constantly closing between a holding Qantas 744 and a British Airways 772 under tow (with none other than Tim Bowrey in the 772’s cockpit). The gap was still wide enough by the time the United 744 came into non-obstructed view though, and I got the shot!




With Tim in the cockpit.

TT8762
DATE: 19th April, 2011
AIRCRAFT: Airbus A320-232
REGISTRATION: VH-VNB
SECTOR: Sydney (SYD) – Gold Coast (OOL)
SEAT: 18D
ETD/ATD (Gate, Local) 1520/1545
ETA/ATA (Gate, Local) 1645/1707

Web check in for Tiger Airways opens seven days prior to your flight’s scheduled departure, so naturally I checked in as soon as I could – the morning it opened. As it turned out, I was the first passenger to check in! The sequence 001 typed on my boarding pass still makes me laugh. :P



It was sadly time to go home, and I was hoping like hell that my flight back with Tiger wasn’t cancelled or extensively delayed. I looked at the FIDS the first opportunity I had, and saw that my flight would be departing through Gate 40 – and it didn’t show cancelled or ‘DELAYED’ next to it! Hooray! I quickly got through security, bought a milkshake and went to the Jetstar terminal first to watch the arrivals on 16R while sitting in air-conditioning...heaven. I tried my best to get some more shots without too many reflections caused by the glass windows. My first shot of VH-ZPR eventuated from sitting here, and seeing Air Mauritius’s A340-300 touch down was a first for me as well!






For some reason, this Dash under tow was hilarious at the time - it looked so comical!

A decision was made to walk over to the Virgin Blue finger thirty minutes later. Seeing passengers about to board ZPR made us jealous. VUY was there as well, and its next flight was DJ527 to the Gold Coast! I could’ve gone on that! Oh well, it was in a perfect place for a photo!



A beautiful looking golden retriever was unloaded from it too after its previous flight from BNE, and Andrew pointed out that even a dog flew on this aircraft before us. Of course, we felt humiliated.



My ride eventually arrived around fifteen to twenty minutes late – no biggie – at least the delay wasn’t five hours! It turned out to be VH-VNB, an older A320 in Tiger’s fleet. There were a lot of passengers waiting around the gate, suggesting a full load for the flight. Naturally, it was full of kids and families going up for their Easter break, as well as A LOT of foreigners. All of them lined up when the initial call for boarding was made, and once the line thinned out five minutes later, I thanked Andrew for a really good day and said my goodbyes.

Since I was seated in 18A, I was going to be boarding via the rear stairs. The aircraft was packed when I made my way into it, and I had to wait a while to get to my seat. I found that a little kid was sitting in mine! I was disappointed, but did not want to deprive the child of one of the best views in the world, and besides, this may inspire him to get a job in the aviation industry when he is older! I took the vacant 18C, but then the woman next to me asked if I could swap seats with her husband in 18D. I said sure, but in retrospect I could’ve gotten my seat in 18A and the woman could still be next to her husband, even though the aisle separates them. Oh well, I ended up sitting next to this nice old lady anyway. But, the thing is, I couldn’t get any photos of the flight – SORRY! It was lucky that I actually found a seat, as there were passengers clambering all over the place to find theirs, with a lot of confusion. This added a ten minute delay to our already delayed flight, but before long, we were pushed back and I had the fastest taxi I have ever experienced to runway 16L.

Take off was fast and uninterrupted, and we began our standard left turn at five hundred feet – great fun! Our ascent was relatively smooth, except for titbits of minor turbulence. The flight attendants quickly brought around snacks and drinks for anyone who wanted them (of course, its all BOB) and we levelled off at FL370. Ten minutes later, the first officer informed us that we will be tracking south and then passing to the right of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta, before turning left and left again over Palm Beach and arriving on runway 14. I liked how he actually said runway 14 . He also said that we would be arriving in the Gold Coast at three minutes past five, and expected to be at the gate four minutes later. With this information, he stated that since daylight saving has ceased in Sydney, it is on the same time as the Gold Coast. This was the catalyst for what happened the moment after he stopped talking.

The ‘nice old lady’ seated next to me put down her Sudoku puzzle book that had subdued her for half of the flight and began what seemed like a never-ending rant about daylight saving and how stupid it is. She supported this be arguing about Australian politics, and comparing our politics to the barbaric nature of corrupted dictatorships and democracies in Africa, and even going as far back as the Vietnam War. This lasted for the rest of the cruise and the whole descent and taxi. Combined with a headache, this is a situation I would not like to find myself in again.

We had some moderate turbulence passing through thick grey clouds during our final approach into OOL, but we came out of them whilst passing over Palm Beach and made a smooth landing on runway 14. We made another fast taxi to our gate at Tiger Airways’s T2, or as I like to call it, the shed. This is where Freedom Air used to operate out of, and was (I believe) the old international terminal at OOL. It was threatening rain outside, so I quickly disembarked the aircraft and walked inside the terminal. As I was walking, I saw VH-VQY parked at Gate 22 – it looks like it went U/S, as it hadn’t flown since operating JQ983 PER-OOL on the 17th of April. It has since entered service again. Surprisingly, I was impressed with it. It had one baggage carousel and had enough room to handle one flight at a time. It even boasted a café area. Not needing to collect any baggage, I walked straight through the terminal and outside, called Dad who came down and picked me up, and then went home!

That night, I found out that Sydney Airport’s Terminal 2 had been evacuated around FIVE MINUTES after my flight departed! Apparently one of the security screens malfunctioned and some people walked through without been screened. Naturally, this was a massive security scare which prompted the rescreening of all passengers in the terminal, causing major delays to all flights from it – Tiger Airways flights included. I felt so lucky to make it home that evening!

Conclusion

What a day! It wasn’t surprising that I was so tired when I got home!

I had such a great day spotting down in Sydney. The weather was perfect, and I was so lucky with movements and seeing airlines and aircraft that I have never seen before! My flight down with Jetstar was great, with beautiful views, nice cabin crew and an early arrival. This is my third time I have flown with Jetstar, and wouldn’t hesitate to fly with them again. On Tiger, I experienced a professional and friendly cabin crew and a nice quick flight. It was obvious by the quick taxi that the flight crew were trying to make up the delay for us. I would only fly them on short haul legs however, with OOL-MEL or OOL-AVV being the longest I would fly them on. I wouldn’t mind flying them again. During the day, I took around 640 photos and 2 videos. The number of photos has since been revised down to around 180, taking out the duds and the multiple photos of the same aircraft.

I’d just like to thank Andrew for one of the best days I’ve had in my life – everything turned out perfect, and I will definitely be seizing every opportunity I have for another trip down here!

I have since made a video of a compilation of my photos taken during my day in Sydney – please take a moment to watch it if you wish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yY5oJo1gPM

Thanks for reading my trip report, if you got through it! And sorry again for the lack of photos taken during TT8762!
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Last edited by Brock Little; 23rd April 2011 at 10:19 PM. Reason: Typo
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