Airline/Airport/Travel questions and queries

Locker10a

Fred Swanson wrote: »

It is entirely normal for one pilot to leave the flight deck to use the toilet. The other pilot flies the plane. All normal.

Actually that's not true, Ryanair were very public after the Germanwings crash that they NEVER allow one pilot alone in the flight deck at any time, and if one pilot requires the loo a cabin crew member must step into the flight deck, same at Aer Lingus .
What may have happened in this incident is there may have been a third pilot or cabin crew member travelling in the flight deck jump seat.

billie1b

swansea wrote: »

Maybe so but I was sure I only heard the co-pilot introduced.

3rd pilot, jumpseating crew, supernumeries etc etc won't be introduced, just the 2 pilots that are flying the aircraft will be announced.

Chris_5339762

I've seen this on a Ryanair myself... and I happened to be watching as the Captain emerged. A cabin crew member headed into the cockpit at the same time so there is always 2 in the cockpit.

Fred Swanson

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LXFlyer

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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I suspect that procedures in virtually every airline changed in the aftermath of the Germanwings incident, if they had not already required two people on the flightdeck at all times.

That changed things significantly.

joeysoap

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

I've seen this on a Ryanair myself... and I happened to be watching as the Captain emerged. A cabin crew member headed into the cockpit at the same time so there is always 2 in the cockpit.

I've seen this with both RY and AL. I think you would only notice this from the front of the cabin, unlikely to notice from the rear.

LiamaDelta

swansea wrote: »

I was on a Ryanair flight during the week and noticed one of the pilots leaving the cockpit but no other crew member stepping in. Am I wrong in thinking that there is a rule requiring two crew members to be in the cockpit at all times?

Could even be a case that one of the cabin crew went in unnoticed by you and then the pilot decided to nip out.

Tenger

swansea wrote: »

Maybe so but I was sure I only heard the co-pilot introduced.

"This is your Captain speaking, with me today is Senior 1st Officer Jeff and behind me in the jumpseat for the short hop to London Stanstead is Keith, my best mate since school"

JCX BXC

Ryanair have launched a €5 seat sale before their website goes off for 8 hours tonight.

Website hasn't been online since they announced the sale! It looks like it was taken down early, nobody can check in or print boarding passes or anything! Must be a nightmare for anyone travelling tomorrow that didn't have a chance to log on before now!

Fred Swanson

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Irish Steve

Ryanair website is working fine from here at the moment, and not a lot slower than usual. Sale only has 2 destinations at €5, brussels and Newcastle, and the sale closes at 6, so a small enough window for booking. If you can get flights on days that suit, why not.

JCX BXC

Still not working at all for me, heading to Newcastle soon but flights already booked (at an amazing price), was wondering if they had gone down anymore.

Also, Berlin from Shannon is another one down to a fiver.

Irish Steve

If the web is doing what it normally does on a day like this, some of the issues will be down to the available bandwidth between Ryanair's site and the Internet providers, if you are using one of the larger providers, that may be an issue, my ISP is not one of the main stream providers, and I've noticed that I don't get the delays and congestion that some users report, especially in the evening periods. Have to admit I only looked at the Dublin departures, travelling to Shannon or one of the other airports for an 0 dark hundred departure is no fun, it's bad enough with Dublin only being 20 minutes away, the thought of leaving here at 2 or 3 in the morning to be sure of making the flight is enough to make me look to see if there's a local alternative, and most times, there is.

JCX BXC

There will be a large amount of population located outside Dublin on this forum though, as well worth noting a significant amount of flights from Shannon depart in the early morning or afternoon as opposed to 6/7/8am. Similar in Knock and to an extent Cork.

Website working for me now, although the app is still down.

Jan_de_Bakker

Very quick Ryanair question, I have to catch a flight later with my son, so i printed the boarding passes but on one sheet of paper - one on each side - should be ok yeah ?

I know they like to take the sheet and just tear it immediately ... ill warn them, but just wanna be safe wouldn't surprise me with Ryanair that you need 1 piece of paper per boarding pass .... ill stick the boarding passes on my phone too to be sure to be sure ...

SNNUS

Jan_de_Bakker wrote: »

Very quick Ryanair question, I have to catch a flight later with my son, so i printed the boarding passes but on one sheet of paper - one on each side - should be ok yeah ?

I know they like to take the sheet and just tear it immediately ... ill warn them, but just wanna be safe wouldn't surprise me with Ryanair that you need 1 piece of paper per boarding pass .... ill stick the boarding passes on my phone too to be sure to be sure ...

Hello, before you needed to have one boarding pass per sheet of A4, do not do back to back just print 2 separate pages.

Irish Steve

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the scanners at both Dublin and Hamburg have problems coping with boarding passes that had been folded in accordance with the guidelines on the form, I think the scanners are having problems with seeing images or data from the other parts of the page that are bleeding through, in both cases, once they opened the paper up, it scanned,

If you have the option to capture the passes on to a mobile phone, that would indeed seem to be a good backup plan, but in that case, don't use the paper option at one location, then the phone version at another, as that may cause the system confusion, it certainly did at Gatwick a while back, I had both passes on my phone, which were used to get through airside entry, and my friend had a paper backup in case we got split by security, and at the gate, his paper backup wasn't correctly recognised because it hadn't been used at security. Fortunately, I copped what was happening, and they let me go back to him with my phone to solve the problem, but I don't know if that issue has now been resolved, it was reported at the time.

Jan_de_Bakker

Irish Steve wrote: »

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the scanners at both Dublin and Hamburg have problems coping with boarding passes that had been folded in accordance with the guidelines on the form, I think the scanners are having problems with seeing images or data from the other parts of the page that are bleeding through, in both cases, once they opened the paper up, it scanned,

If you have the option to capture the passes on to a mobile phone, that would indeed seem to be a good backup plan, but in that case, don't use the paper option at one location, then the phone version at another, as that may cause the system confusion, it certainly did at Gatwick a while back, I had both passes on my phone, which were used to get through airside entry, and my friend had a paper backup in case we got split by security, and at the gate, his paper backup wasn't correctly recognised because it hadn't been used at security. Fortunately, I copped what was happening, and they let me go back to him with my phone to solve the problem, but I don't know if that issue has now been resolved, it was reported at the time.

Very strange, you would think that allthough phone and paper passes are not the same - they should resolve to the same unique booking number.

Thanks for the info guys.

Printed another copy of the passes ...

Fred Swanson

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Irish Steve

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Indeed. The incident at Gatwick happened at a very early stage of the use of phone based passes, so I reported it to Ryanair, but I never got any form of response or follow up from them, I can only assume that there was some sort of system issue that caused the problem, the gate staff at Gatwick had seen the problem before, but until that day, didn't know what was causing it.

I can only assume (which is dangerous) that the issue has now been resolved.

markpb

Irish Steve wrote: »

I can only assume (which is dangerous) that the issue has now been resolved.

The website very specifically states that you must choose to download a paper barcode or a digital barcode and use it that way. I've never understood why the two barcodes differ, it doesn't make any sense to me.

jasonb

Hi all...

I'm hoping to fly to Dubai in November to visit family living there.

I was looking at Sky Scanner for prices, and I'm getting a quote of €435 through 'Go To Gate' and €469 through Emirates (both for the same Emirates flights). Obviously, I'd like to spend less money, but I've heard second hand stories of potential issues with booking through a 3rd party. I know these second hand stories tend to always be negative, you never really hear the 'everything was fine' stories.

So, just looking for people's opinions, are Go To Gate ok, should I spend the extra €34 for more 'peace of mind'?

Thanks...

Captain_Crash

I'd spend the extra €34 and go with EK (maybe look at Etihad to Abu Dhabi also, they offer a free shuttle bus to Dubai if you have arrived in an EY flight)

Normally, the 3rd party sites are fine once you pay in full. However; for the sake of €34 the peace of mind with be worth it.

jasonb

Yep, that's what I was thinking too, it's probably better to have peace of mind.

I had a look at flying to Abu Dhabi as well, but there aren't any direct flights.

Thanks...

Captain_Crash

jasonb wrote: »

I had a look at flying to Abu Dhabi as well, but there aren't any direct flights

I was under the impression you were flying from Dublin, if so, EY are twice daily to Abu Dhabi.

jasonb

Oops, sorry, I was getting mixed up with flying to DWC instead of DBX, as I'd checked that as well, and DWC isn't direct from Dublin!

You're right of course, there are direct flights from Dublin to Abu Dhabi, but it's a little dearer than flying to DBX (about €50 more) so I might as well stick with the DBX flight.

Thanks...

Captain_Crash

jasonb wrote: »

I might as well stick with the DBX flight.

DXB;)

Have a great trip

jasonb

Wow... With a bit of luck I'll end up in the right country, never mind the right airport!

JCX BXC

Captain_Crash wrote: »

DXB;)

Have a great trip

Was it April fools day last year that I read something about Dubai buying the DUB code from Dublin?

jasonb

Tickets booked, thanks for the advice!