Hey there guys!
So about two weeks ago, I was preparing for a flight-filled holiday, I was going to fly.
- Durban to Cape Town (Mango)
- Cape Town to Doha (Qatar)
- Doha to London (Qatar)
- London to Perth (Qantas)
- Perth to Sydney (Qantas)
- Sydney to Doha (Qatar)
- Doha to Johannesburg (Qatar)
- Johannesburg to Durban (Qatar)
This would all take place over my easter holidays, I don’t have a lot of time to travel during school terms since I am at boarding school and I am only allowed home on Saturday afternoons to Monday Mornings.
Since my dad flies for Qatar he himself, lives in Doha,
I was flying so much this holiday because we were visiting family.
The First Flight
My first flight was aboard a Mango 737-800
I was flying from Durban King Shaka International
to Cape Town International. It is a 2:30 hour flight, but South African Lowcost airlines aren’t as bad as most European/American low costs (Except JetBlue)
ZS-SJC, the aircraft that I was flying that morning.
Credit to JetPhotos
Mango’s seats
Credit to Lanseria Airport
Boarding started at 9:45. They closed the aircraft doors. A Flight Attendant came to my row and invited me to the cockpit, I arrived in the cockpit and was amazed by all the buttons and switches, I recognized the Captain as one of my Step-Mom’s friends husband.
For this sake we’ll call him John for privacy reasons. He pulled down the jump seat that was directly behind the left seat, and told me to sit down, he gave me a headset to listen to ATC. My dad was also invited to the cockpit and he sat at the other jumpseat. We pushed back and the captain let me power up the engines. We taxied behind a SAA A319 that was going to Johannesburg. We were holding short of the runway, waiting for a Qatar Dreamliner to land. We then took off, I knew we had to be silent for the first 10,000 feet (Sterile Cockpit, my dad told me the night before). It was utterly amazing, Once we were passed 10,000 I was allowed to turn off the landing lights.
I asked the captain if I must go back to the cabin at a later stage and he said I could stay for the rest of the flight. We had a long aviation chat. I asked the two pilots what their dream aircraft to fly is and said the 777, They also wanted to fly overseas, (for a different airline) The captain asked my dad if Qatar was a good airline said he would love to fly for it, my dad said he’d put in the word. About an hour into the flight, The FA asked the pilots if they would like something to drink, along with me and my dad, I asked for an Coke. To my surprise, she gave me a slab of chocolate, and I gave her the money, she denied it and gave it to me for free.
When we descended, we were put into a holding pattern behind 2 heavies, A Lufthansa A340-600 and a British Airways 747-400. We landed and parked at the gate, and to my amazement, saw a second 787 of the day, again, Qatar. I got to power down the engines. Sadly, this was the end to a great experience.
We thanked the cabin crew and the pilots and de boarded. I found out that my Step-mom organized this, and it took a while and even had to get approved by the SACAA.
Thanks for taking your time to read this
- I will post more pictures later, just downloading them off my camera which is dead.