Thomas Cook A-320 to Crete

Excellent review DRS Spotter

My wife and I go to Greece just about every year. We are Greek and we live just of the city of Corinthos, 100 km west of Athens. My Father in law is from Crete and we fly to Crete for about 5 days each time. We land in Chania (properly pronounce Hania). We also drive to Heraklion (properly pronouced Iraklion). Oh! the Greeks and their English translations. Crete is an awesome place to go. We're taking 2004 off from Greece cause we don't need the mad rush of the Olympics. My inlaw are there now and my parents are going in July for more than three months.

As you can see below my avatar I live 10,000 km west of Athens

My trip to our little summer home in Vrahati, Corinthia Greece is a 9:20 min flight from Vancouver to Amsterdam, then a 3:20 min flight from from the Nethelands to Athens, then a 1:20 min drive west to our summer villa. Athens airport is 140 km away from our home.

Sounds like Thomas Cook is a good airline. I would love to fly them one day.

Hello.

This will be my last trip report until I fly fort he next time (hope it won?t be too long).
So let?s start?
For this years Easter holiday me and a friend decide to go on vacation to the island of Crete in Greece. So we searched the web for some last minute offers. The best seemed to be a hotel in the north of the island. What made me choosing this special hotel was it?s location very next to the airport, which meant that the aircraft who were on short finals for HER were flying directly over the hotel area. That gave me the opportunity to enjoy ma hobby while sitting at the bar, the pool or on the beach and finally let me make this shameless plug here.

A plane passing over the Rinela Beach hotel in Kokkini Chani...
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...or over the old town of Heraklion
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But lets come to the flight itself.
Due to the fact that only flights from Leipzig were available we had to make our way to LEJ. There a new terminal is serving passengers since a few months. We arrived by car and parked it in the parking lot. All in all the whole terminal complex was very unclear arranged. It?s like a mall were and you have to walk very long from the check-in counters to the departure hall. For me it seemed to be not the best conclusion for passengers despite it is very modern. And even the stuff wasn?t very friendly.

Check-in started on time and we were one of the first joining the queue. The lady at the desk wasn?t very polite. I asked if we could have three seats for us two but she answered very unfriendly that it wasn?t impossible because the plane she told me was full. Later the captain told us that only between 130 and 140 persons were onboard this 178 seater. Whilst waiting after check-in the plane arrived from HER about 45 minutes ahead of schedule. It was a scheduled the A 320-200 D-AICD.

This plane brought me from Leipzig (LEJ) to Heraklion (HER)
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Due to the fact that the aircraft arrived early the boarding was on time and we could enter the aircraft without any delays. Whilst entering the aircraft we were welcomed by some friendly F/A?s and we could choose between plenty of newspapers and magazines. The aircraft looked very modern, clean and friendly. And as I stated only 140 passengers were onboard and we got the requested three seats for two persons only. This made thee trip a bit more comfortable. In the plane wasn?t a lot of space, but I (about 1,87m in height) won?t be the right person to judge over seat pitch in tourist class.
The aircraft taxied out on time and made it?s way to runway over the highway, which was very interesting to see from plane and not from car only. Right after take-off we hit some light turbulences but till descend the flight was very smooth. The inflight-entertainment wasn?t the best at all but standard for German charter carriers. We were shown the movie ?Something?s Gotta Give? which wasn?t very interesting but funny to see. For meal we were served some kind of typical hot plane food, I think it was pasta or chicken. Not very tasty and not very much but what more can you expect. A big surprise for me was the friendliest cockpit crew I enjoyed during my last flights. They told the passengers much about the aircraft and the direction of flying.

The taxiway over the highway and take-off as well as the cabin
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A few minutes later we passed over my hometown Dresden and it?s airport but these pictures were rejected. As I said before the flight was very normal without special happenings till our descent to HER. This was very shaky and bumpy but funny for me. We touched down on runway 27 smoothly after three hours inflight. The airport of HER isn?t very modern but everything went on very quick like I know it from Greece airports.

After only one week of vacations we had to fly back home.

At the airport everything went on very very quickly and thee counters were already opened when we arrived there. The check-in personal was Greek but handled the German passengers very well. We all know that they aren?t easy to handle.

After having checked-in we started waiting in the gate area and watching the many aircraft coming and going.

Here are some examples for the aircraft we saw whilst waiting.
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Just on time or some minutes ahead of schedule our plane arrived from Hannover (HAJ). Again it was a Thomas Cook (powered by Condor) A 320-200, but this time it was D-AICJ
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At HER the boarding was via busses and was on time too. This time whilst entering thee plane there weren?t as many newspapers offered but we were also welcomed very nice. After boarding was completed we noticed that the plane was booked fully and no seat was unoccupied. We had to wait a bit for our taxi clearance and then taxied to runway 27. But there we didn?t take off, we only taxied to the very end of runway 27 made a 180? turn and then took off from runway 09.

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After take off we made a left turn and then broke through the clouds we were above during the entire flight. For this case the flight was very unspectacular. We got some cold breakfast with Greek salad and bread. Again it wasn?t very much but nice to bring the 3 hours we were on the plane behind us. This time the in-flight movie was ?Alice through the Looking Glass? which isn?t the best for a flight with 90% of adults on it. The crew was friendly and did their job well but could?ve done better as we know from the LEJ-HER flight. The flight itself was again very smooth and after 3 hours I enjoyed the smoothest landing ever.

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All in all the flights were very good and the aircraft in very good condition. The Crew was polite and friendly.

Resuming I can say: WELL DONE THOMAS COOK powered by CONDOR (now Condor again).

Hope you?ve enjoyed this report, unless my English seemed to get worst in the last lines.

Bye, Georg.
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