Welcome to this Trip Report
Dublin → Faro
This was my first flight this year and it was a great way to start this travel year. Why? It was my first time flying an a330 or should I say a widebody. This won’t be last as I’ll be onboard the EK 777 in July. So read along this long thread featuring both flights, the scenery and planespotting pictures taken from a beach. Seeing a guy on a beach taking photos of planes with a professional camera may seem like a lunatic but It was worth it as I saw some very interesting planes such as the Edelweiss A350.
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Our flight was onboard a newly painted Aer Lingus a330-300 registered as EI-FNH. It has returned from New York JFK and was then getting prepared for my flight to Faro. Journey begins 18/04/25
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I arrived at the airport af 3:30AM and had to wait in a long queue for check-in. Aer Lingus check-in is different, you have 20 check in counters which lead you to every Aer Lingus flight there is later that day. That means passengers from every departing flight had to wait in the same queue as us. This took me 50 minutes just to drop off my suitcase. TSA was very fast and efficient and had no problem. The aircraft for today was parked at gate 314. I still had time before the gates opened so I took a photo of this a330-200.
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We boarded the aircraft on time and pushbacked at 7:35AM. The weather as you can see was the typical irish weather so no surprises here! Seat -14 I
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Route for today
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As said, push back was on time and we started engines. We pushbacked tail right facing north-west.
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We started taxi to runway 10R and here we can see an Aer Lingus airbus a321neo arriving from USA.
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After a 10 minute taxi to runway 10R, we were ready for takeoff and we were underway.
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The climb was smooth as the winds were calm. Here we can see the outskirts of Dublin and of course the a330 wingtip with the shamrock design.
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We have reached our cruise altitude which was FL360 and the catering service had begun. We were over the Bay of Biscay.
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I ordered a ham and cheese toast with water and it was good. It was nice and warm though the cheese was stuck to the packaging which made it hard to remove.
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We have entered Portugal and a few minutes later we began our top of descent. Weather wasn’t looking good that day but it changed significantly 2 days after arrival.
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We have crossed the clouds ceiling and extended the slats. We were turning final for runway 28 in Faro.
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We are now established for runway 28 and we were approaching the town of Faro.
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Now on short final and we can see the town of Faro on my right.
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And touch down on runway 28 for the first time inside a widebody, landing was smooth as always on the a330.
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When we left the aircraft, I noticed how small the airport is and that made it clear why the passport control queue was long. It was PACKED, it looked like there was some type of protest going on because of how many people there was. If you’re going Faro, you may experience this.
Coastal Scenery
Click here to check out more photos on scenery
Hello, looks like you are interested in seeing what Faro has to offer. Here is a tourist hotspot where you can go for free to check out some cliffs. It is dangerous as there is no protection and could cause casualties so proceed with caution if visiting in the future. Here you can find beautiful flowers and coastal cliffs where you can find fossils burried into the rocky ground.
This is located at my hotel so this is only for the residents to visit. It looks cool so I added it here too.
You have reached the end
Planespotting from beach
Click here to look at photos of a large variety of airlines I have spotted at a beach
Hello, here are airlines spotted from a beach, all of them were approaching runway 10 in Faro. Enjoy!
Edelweiss A350
This was also spotted on a beach
Faro → Dublin
And now it’s 25/04/25 which means It’s time to go back. We will be flying, yet again a new plane, the A320NEO. I never flew this one before so lets see what it had to offer. It was registered EI-NSB.
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Faro airport, like I said is small and this time check-in was fast and TSA only took 5 minutes. There is a large duty free shop which is surprising for such airport and the waiting area was ok. Seats were plastic so I wouldn’t recommend waiting 1-2 hours at the gate. I managed to take a photo of this Transavia Boeing 737-800 heading to Amsterdam Schiphol, I will be heading there in 2 months!
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We boarded our aircraft and we expected to depart at 17:40 PM. Here we are parked beside the ryanair boeing 737-8200 (Favourite plane) and we finished boarding the aircraft in no time!
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We started pushback 10 minutes ahead of schedule which was brilliant and we started those beautiful Leap engines. I missed that sound, last time I heard it was 3 years ago!
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We started taxi to runway 28 and held short to let this ryanair boeing 737-800 land during sunset.
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And after that, we lined up and were ready for takeoff
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Starting our climb and enjoying the last views of Faro.
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Beautiful sharklet with the green Shamrock design!
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Here we can see a rich housing estate with a long beach, unfortunately my hotel and beach was visible on the left side of the aircraft.
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Reaching our cruise altitude of FL370, seatbelt signs were left on as we had a turbulent climb.
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The neo sharklet plus sunset looks stunning!
I only ordered a Twix bar and that was because this plane flew DUB-LHR, LHR-DUB, DUB-LHR, LHR-DUB, DUB-FAO, FAO-DUB. Most snacks were gone because of the last flight where the cabin crew said “it was a full flight”. The seats were only 3cm thick and it wasn’t that comfortable after 1 hr 30 minutes into the flight.
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Easyjet a320 SL 2,000ft below us flying to UK from Madeira or Canary Islands.
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Beautiful sky after the sunset, maybe we will see this in infinite flight in the future.
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We are now over the celtic sea and captain told us we are soon descending down to Dublin.
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Starting our top of descent down to Dublin, we had a turbulent descent most likely becuase of clouds.
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touchdown into Dublin, we landed on runway 10L with the smoothest touchdown I ever felt on an a320. I apologise for the bad quality.
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We deplaned ahead of schedule which was awesome and the airport experience in Dublin was brilliant. It was late at night so the terminal was empty.
I hope you enjoyed reading through this long trip report and I hope I inspired you to visit Portugal. The next trip report topic you will see made by me will be DUB-AMS, AMS-DUB on Ryanair. Both flights will be on the same day.
Ratings:
DUB-FAO
Dublin airport - 3.5/5
Airline - 4.5/5
Food - 4/5
Seats - 5/5
Faro airport - 2.5/5
FAO-DUB
Faro airport - 4/5
Airline - 4.5/5
Food - 1.5/5
Seats - 2/5
Dublin airport - 5/5
(the negative ones)