Hello Community!
On Monday the 1st of July, I was invited to join the crew of a SWISS A220-100 on a flight from Zürich (LSZH) to Madrid Barajas (LEMD). The best thing about this experience was my seat. The First Officer, who invited me, managed to pull a few strings and managed to reserve the jumpseat for me. I was buzzing when I found out this was happening! Below is a little timeline of my day.
-4am-
After a terrible nights sleep, I got up and did my usual morning routine. An hour later, at 5am, I headed outside and waited for the first officer to pick me up, not knowing what the day held in store for me.
-5:30am-
Half an hour after I was picked up, I was standing in one of the parking garages at Zürich airport. The first officer handed me my tickets and headed to the operations centre whilst I headed to the terminal, where I went straight to security. After a quick check I was on my way to the A gates at Zürich. I had a lot of time to kill, so I went to a seating area and did some spotting.
-7am-
After seeing “Go to gate”, I headed to Gate 54 where boarding had already started. I was told to be the last passenger to board, so that the flight attendants would recognize me. As soon as I had boarded, one of the flight attendants asked me for my name, shook my hand and welcomed me onboard. The F/O welcomed me to the cockpit where I was greeted by the Captain and this view:
It was really nice to see that the captain was female.
-7:11am-
We taxied to runway 28 a.k.a “Westpiste” (West runway) here at Zürich.
-7:18am-
After an A321-100 took off in-front of us, I heard “Swiss 202D, line up and wait runway 28”. Two minutes later we were cleared for take off. The picture isn’t great. Sorry about that.
-During Cruise-
We cruised above the skies over Europe for roughly an hour in which time I got to speak to the pilots and take loads of pictures. The flight attendant was very kind and offered me a business class meal and regularly checked in to see how I was doing. Here is a picture I got whilst flying over the a
Pyrénées
-Approach into Madrid-
During our approach into Madrid we were guided down safely by various air traffic controllers. I was surprised when they spoke Spanish and English on frequency.
We were vectored for a straight in approach for runway 32R. Whilst we were on final I took these pictures:
-On Spanish Soil-
After landing, we taxied towards our gate. Today it was T24. Once the pilots had completed the before shutdown checklist, the F/O went outside to say goodbye to the passengers. Afterwards we went outside to do the walk around of the aircraft. I didn’t get any pictures during the walk around as a lot was going on.
I hope you enjoyed the first half of my day! I’ll try to post the second part in the next few days. Also feedback is appreciated. Have a good day 