Yeah you indeed heard that title correct, despite the state Cali, Colombia 🇨🇴 is in right now I am officially coming back mainly because earlier in the summer before my trip to Medellín, a cousin came for a month and another for 2 weeks and it was honestly one of the best times of my life especially when I went with one to Miami 🏝️😎 to this ballon museum and the Brickell City Centre. They left a while ago but today is the day we reunite with them, we will be taking Spirit Airlines on their Airbus A320neo from the yacht capital of the world, Fort Lauderdale 🏝️🛥️ to see how it is a year later I’ll be doing this trip with almost my entire family like last time including my uncle who returned for the first time in 25 years last time so let’s see how this family handles a trip on the banana neo. After a pretty tough time trying to get through I-95 and trying to find a parking space at the airport, we have arrived at FLLs terminal 4 home to Spirits massive operation here at their home base. This is not only their biggest “focus city” but their main Caribbean and Latin America gateway competing with JetBlue on some routes like to Cancun, Mexico 🇲🇽 San Juan, Puerto Rico 🇵🇷🏝️ Punta Cana, Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 but NK still has more flights with them being superior here the only true competition they have is American Airlines down at MIA which I think the latter wins but Spirts operations are still solid. After a kind of quick bag drop, it was off to TSA which once again I don’t have pre check but despite that, I still got through quicker than I did on my Medellín trip at 3 minutes and 26 seconds I guess there is an advantage of arriving late 😅 I soon went to the gate to meet up with my family but at the end of the day, we were still kind of early so the gate was still occupied by another spirit flight heading to Port-au-Prince, Haiti 🇭🇹 before holding out flight to CLO. My parents went off to a little shop and got me a nice breakfast croissant with ham and cheese along with a Starbucks Frappuccino and now we wait for our inbound aircraft.
FLIGHT INFO
Origin: Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Intl 🇺🇸 (KFLL)
Destination: Alfonso Bonilla Aragon Intl 🇨🇴 (SKCL)
Flight Time: 3:26
Airbus A320neo (Spirit Airlines)
Server: None (Real Life)
Taking me and the squad to Cali this morning will be N952NK a 2 year old Airbus A320neo delivered to Spirit in January 2022 and alongside at gate G5 is a JetBlue Airbus A320 in the new spotlight livery registered N821JB “Blue Yorker” aka the one we are trying to get in game
@PhorzaSky summon
One thing we are for sure getting though is the destination our plane came from, Houston IAH yep if you looked at IFs latest Instagram post we are getting IAH in 24.3 3D! 🤩 hopefully FLL and Blue Yorker as well 🙏 now we still had a bit before boarding so I did what basically every spirit passenger does, juice up their devices which I feel like shouldn’t be necessary since I feel like offering plugs wouldn’t be harmful to them I mean if you book their most expensive fare type it includes free Wi-Fi so I feel like that must be added other than that, I just looked out the window admiring Blue Yorker before it was time for her to go. Spirits aircraft consistency on this route isn’t the best initially when I booked it, we were on the brand new A321neo which was what I was looking forward to the most before changing it to a standard A320 they soon moved it back to the neo last week before swapping OUR flight back to a ceo and swapping it AGAIN this morning back to a neo. Come on Spirit make up your mind but anyways I’ll just skip to when I board so see you there!
All of Spirits A320neos have 182 seats on them with 8 big front seats in a 2-2 configuration and the remaining 174 seats in a 3-3 configuration. I was the only one in the entire squad that paid extra to select my seat with my chosen seat being 29A. It’s pretty similar to what I had on the MDE flight which was okay but not the best the only thing I’ll add are charging ports but other than that it’s fine and looking outside we have a better view of not the same one but another new spotlight JetBlue A320. It was a full flight so I did have 2 seat mates but other than that it was totally fine and it kind of brought me back to my JFK day trip being next to strangers. We did have a bit of a delay on pushback thanks to paperwork up in the cockpit but I’m pretty sure we’ll make up time in the air so let’s sit back, relax and make our way to FLLs runway 10R for take off!
I’ve never had a take off from FLL on the left side of the plane from what I can recall but today that changes as I get to see the airport and the city of Fort Lauderdale 🏝️🛥️ on our departure this morning as we begin the journey back to Cali!
After a somewhat rough take off, we climbed up to FL370 on our journey south to Cali and the flight attendants where soon in the aisle with their service which I opted out of except a cup of ice simply because I bought a Coke at the airport and packed a Biscoff cookie I got from Publix and enjoyed my make shift legacy carrier service. The crew were also pretty nice like I usually have on Spirit and didn’t really have anything note worthy to highlight so 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I simply just enjoyed the views for a bit like I am enjoying Cuba 🇨🇺 right now.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Jamaica 🇯🇲 since the clouds decide to make a guest appearance which ruined my chance of getting a nice view over Montego Bay. Since the views weren’t going to be any good I simply just watched an episode of iCarly and Victorious I downloaded before the flight.
Thankfully kind of, the clouds disappeared as we reached the coast of Colombia 🇨🇴 but I wanted to wait till we got close to Medellín since our route would take us past it, but the clouds once again ruined it but now it’s time to begin our descent into CLO.
Now this approach was going to be interesting, it would basically have us do the same old thing fly down the valley passing the airport on downwind but as we made that final base turn we did like a tear drop before coming to land on RWY 02. Now if I every day anything about turbulence, just remind me of this experience as we were descending through the clouds we had some of the WORST turbulence I’ve ever experienced like the whole cabin was screaming and they even had to announce people to sit down in the lavatory. But after that thrill ride everything calmed down and this seems like a regular mountain right? Well no it’s the mountain that American Airlines flight 965 crashed into on approach killing everyone but 4 people and a dog RIP 🕊️
A left side seat would provide me for the first time a view of Cali on arrival and even the airport terminal which was really exciting for me since I’ve never seen this perspective but now we enjoy our hopefully not rough approach into CLOs RWY 02!
After a smooth touchdown, Welcome to Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport! Now this flight was quite the experience especially the turbulence during our descent and I also had fun flying back to Colombia 🇨🇴 again only a month after I was here but always be aware of what your getting into so you don’t have any surprises once you board! If you can handle ULCCs on 3 hour flights, than Spirit can be a good choice!
Immigration here in Cali went pretty uneventful with a small twist that I went through without my parents but it was pretty smooth and didn’t take to long and since I didn’t have a checked bag myself, I didn’t need to wait and just had to a small customs check before finally going outside and smelling the valley air before we all head up to Buga to eat some lunch before we go to Cali and get ready for a night out. That will be it regarding our flight on Spirit Airlines on their Airbus A320neo from Fort Lauderdale 🏝️🛥️ to Cali, Colombia 🇨🇴 stay tuned for our return home Wednesday and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 😉👋