TRIP REPORT: Canary Islands adventure

TRIP REPORT

Written by Matjaž Nose

After more than a year, I was airborne again. This time I decided to visit the Canary Islands and the following report will highlight my flight experience aboard Ryanair and the two local carriers, Binter Canarias and Canaryfly. It was the beginning of June when I started searching for my summer holidays destination. My initial pre-Covid plans were going for a trip to Africa but since the entry requirements were and are constantly changing, I decided to be on the safer side and go to Canary Islands instead. The most optimal solution for me was to take a direct Ryanair flight Treviso - Tenerife combined with some local flights between the islands I had decided to visit. I ended up with the following flights:

Ryanair (operated by Malta Air)

 

Treviso (TSF) - Tenerife South (TFS)

Flight number: FR8648

Flight date: 23 July 2021

Aircraft type: B737-800

Aircraft registration: 9H-QCN

Departure & arrival time: 07:00 – 10:35

Flight duration: 4h 35m

Tenerife South (TFS) - Treviso (TSF)

Flight number: FR8649

Flight date: 6 August 2021

Aircraft type: B737-800

Aircraft registration: 9H-QED

Departure & arrival time: 11:10 - 16:45

Flight duration: 4h 35m

Binter Canarias

El Hierro (VDE) - La Palma (SPC) via Tenerife North (TFN)

Flight number: NT662 (VDE-TFN) & NT621 (TFN-SPC)

Flight date: 29 July 2021

Aircraft type/registration: ATR72-600 / EC-MTQ (VDE-TFN) & ATR72-500 / EC-KYI (TFN-SPC)

Departure & arrival time of VDE-TFN flight: 11:10 - 11:50

Departure & arrival time of TFN-SPC flight: 13:00 - 13:30

Canaryfly

La Palma (SPC) - Tenerife North (TFN)

Flight number: PM419

Flight date: 2 August 2021

Aircraft type/registration: ATR72-500 / EC-MSM

Departure & arrival time: 10:45 - 11:15

My adventure started in the middle of the night near Ljubljana bus station where I boarded a GoOpti's van bound for Treviso airport. Teviso airport, sometimes referred to as Venice Treviso airport due to its proximity to Venice (31 km), is around two and a half hours drive from Ljubljana. The flight I took departed early in the morning. It was one of the first flights of the day departing at 7am. When we arrived to Treviso airport we found out that it was still closed. The timetable said it would open at 6am but it was even better, at 5am the doors opened and I headed directly to the check in counters to drop my bag as I had checked in online at home already. The Treviso - Tenerife flight is one of Ryanair's longest lasting over four hours. I was really curious how it feels to spend four hours and more inside an LCC' aircraft. Continue reading, and you will find out.

Adria never dies … Here started my Canary adventure

Treviso airport

When I bought my Ryanair return ticket about a month and a half before departure, I opted for a ''Plus'' option which includes one 20 kg check-in bag, free check-in at the airport. You can also select your seat (I chose window seats, right side on the way to Tenerife and the left side of the aircraft for the return flight). Total price for the return ticket was €187. When I was buying the tickets I also checked offers with departure from Ljubljana and everything was €450 or more so it was not difficult to opt for Ryanair's offer. Later, out of curiosity, I was monitoring how Ryanair's fares for the same flight as mine (same dates, same baggage allowance) were changing. Shortly after I bought my tickets, the prices started to rise, at one point they were over €400, but later, shortly before departure, the prices dropped to around €200. Ryanair's flights were actually operated by Malta Air (not Air Malta). It was the first time I have heard of Malta Air, so I did some investigation. Malta Air is a subsidiary of the Ryanair Group, it commenced operations in June 2019. Headquarters are of course in Malta, but they also operate flights out of Italy, Germany and France serving destinations throughout Europe. The aircraft have Ryanair's livery, but it seems they will use their own livery in the future, at least for the newly acquired jets. The first one (B737 MAX8-200) registered 9H-VUE has already seen daylight in Malta Air's livery.

There are two weekly rotations to Tenerife from Treviso, each Friday and Monday. Treviso airport is a small airport, almost exclusively used by Ryanair and Wizz Air serving destinations like Tenerife, Fez, Marrakech, Tel Aviv, Kyiv, Saint Petersburg, Skopje and several Romanian destinations among others. Nowadays, it is very important to check what Covid related documents you need to enter different countries. At the moment, to enter Spain everybody has to fill in SpTH (Spain Travel Health, www.spth.gob.es ) form to obtain a QR code. You also need proof (like EU digital green certificate) that you have either been fully vaccinated, have negative Covid test result or have recovered from Covid disease. Without all documents that are requested you can not board the airplane. Regarding Italy, I had to fill in EU digital passenger locator form (https://app.euplf.eu ) before I boarded my return flight.

I was not impressed with Treviso airport. Especially the waiting area near my boarding gate, which looked like a cheap industrial hall with some low cost chairs. The boarding started few minutes before 7am, priority passengers boarded first, non-priority ones followed after that. Remote stairs were used to board through the rear door while front stairs of Ryanair's planes are built in which is not common with legacy carriers for this kind of aircraft types. Everything is optimized to save every possible cent. The seats do not recline, and all these adjustments allow for the time needed to prepare the aircraft for the return flight to be reduced and as we know, time is money. We departed some ten minutes after scheduled departure time and headed towards France. Flying along the Mediterranean coast, we later overflew parts of Andalusia before we turned left and down along Morocco's Atlantic coast towards the Canary Islands. The flight was pleasant. I ordered some food and a cappuccino, paying around €10 for all. Hot panini sandwich was surprisingly good and since using face masks during the entire flight is compulsory, except during consuming your meals, I did not hurry to finish my meal too fast. Flight was rather uneventful, load factor was around 80% and I was lucky to have an empty middle seat. The seats were not as comfortable as the seats in our living rooms, but it was not too bad either. I had no problems surviving these long flights and also the seat pitch was actually better than I expected. The seat in front of you which does not recline is a benefit in this case and of course having an empty middle seat contributed a lot to my overall flight experience. We landed on time, the weather was sunny and not too hot when we disembarked at Tenerife Sur - Reina Sofia airport.

My TSF - TFS flight aboard Ryanair's aircraft

Baggage collection area at Tenerife South airport

I decided to stay the first few days in the south of Tenerife island (the largest island in Canary Islands archipelago) so after I collected all my luggage, I headed to Los Cristianos taking a public bus directly from the airport. I had four Canary Islands on the menu for this trip, so I had to decide how to move around. The only possibilities are taking ferries or flying. I took a ferry from Los Cristianos in Tenerife to the youngest island of the archipelago, El Hierro. From El Hierro I flew to the island of La Palma, spent some time there and returned to Tenerife aboard Canaryfly's airplane. After spending four wonderful days in El Hierro, I was at the airport again, walking distance from La Caleta where I had stayed. I was on my way to La Palma using a one-way ticket for a connecting flight which I bought in the beginning of June. The queen of the Canary sky is definitely the ATR72 turboprop aircraft. Binter Canarias airline was the carrier to which I entrusted my life for the next few hours. Their fleet comprise of ATR72 aircraft. They also have five Embraer E195-E2 airplanes used for longer destinations, mostly to mainland Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. My two Binter flights were both operated by ATR72 aircraft. El Hierro airport is one of the smallest airports of the Canary Islands with only two destinations, Tenerife North, and Gran Canaria. Upon boarding, we were given disinfectant wipes, face masks had already been obligatory during our stay at the airport, during boarding and complete flight. No meals were served on this short, 40-minute flight, but we were given small packages of cookies and big smiles from the cabin crew when we disembarked.

El Hierro airport

Binter Canarias' ATR72 turboprop aircraft from El Hierro to Tenerife

Row with number 13 does not exist

Approaching Tenerife North airport

I had less than an hour at TFN airport, enough to eat and drink something, before I boarded my next airplane, this time to La Palma. The second flight was even shorter, only around 30 minutes, but it was also uneventful like the one from El Hierro to Tenerife. Well, there was one peculiarity I must mention - row number 13 does not exist! Load factor of both Binter flights was around 70-80%. During our approach to La Palma airport, we were able to see the rugged landscape of La Palma with many banana plantations along its coast. The island of La Palma is the most north-westerly island of the Canary Islands, to me also the most beautiful of all four islands I have visited.

Departure area at Tenerife North airport

Gate A02 for my flight to La Palma

Airplanes at parking position (TFN)

Boarding our aircraft for La Palma

We had to walk from the airplane to the terminal (SPC)

My return fight back to Tenerife was operated by another, smaller local carrier, Canaryfly. Their fleet consist of only a few ATR72-500 aircraft. As my other flight tickets, I also bought Canaryfly's one way ticket from La Palma to Tenerife North airport at the beginning of June. I was able to get a promotional price (''superprecio''), so for a flight with 20 kg checked baggage included I paid only €28. Residents of Canary Islands pay even less. For the same type of ticket bought at the same time, the residents had to pay only €7! Flight experience was almost identical to the one of Binter Canarias. During our approach to Tenerife North airport we had good views of the highest peak in Tenerife (and all of Spain), 3.718m high Mt. Teide. Views would have been even better if the windows weren't so filthy. Tenerife North is one of the two airports on Tenerife island. The distance between the two airports is around 65 km. Tenerife South airport is mostly used for charter and other flights from abroad (best tourist resorts can be found in the south of Tenerife). On the other hand, the majority of destinations of the smaller Tenerife North airport are located in mainland Spain, TFN is hub for inter-island fights too and also the closest airport to the island's capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife. But it has a sad history. This airport (called Los Rodeos in the past) was the place of the deadliest airport disaster in aviation history. On a foggy March 27, 1977 two Boeing 747 passenger jets belonging to KLM and Pan Am collided on the runway causing 583 fatalities.

Departure area of La Palma airport

Open terrace at La Palma airport (near departure gates)

ATR72-500 of Canaryfly heading to Tenerife

Seat sticker with Covid related protective measures

Mt. Teide, the highest mountain of Spain

Tenerife North airport

I spent the last few days in Santa Cruz and its surroundings before I had to travel down to Tenerife South airport for my flight back home. From Santa Cruz you can take a direct bus No. 111 all the way to the airport. It takes around one hour, and it costs €9.35. Upon arrival to TFS, I dropped my luggage, documents needed for my flight were checked at the check in counter and I was free to proceed to security control and the departure gates. It is interesting to note what languages are used for the airport signage. The three languages used are German, English and of course Spanish. Although it was already around 10am many shops and restaurants were closed, some of them maybe permanently…

Tenerife South airport

This time we boarded our Ryanair aircraft through the front door using a jet bridge only. We departed with some delay but since the actual flight time of our TFS-TSF flight was a bit less than four hours, we managed to arrive on time. After takeoff we headed north-east overflying Tangier, bypassing Gibraltar before we entered Spanish airspace again in the region of Andalusia. We continued flying along the Mediterranean coast until we reached Sanremo and started our descent towards Treviso airport shortly after that. The flight was pleasant and my decision to select a widow seat on the left side of the aircraft proved to be the right one. I had fantastic views down on Tangier airport, Gibraltar, Nice and other sights on the way.

Ryanair's B737-800 for my return flight to Treviso airport

Airport of Tangier, Morocco

Gibraltar

City of Nice

Approaching Treviso airport

Landing

Disembarking at Treviso airport

We touched down at around 4:30PM. Nobody checked any documents and after we had collected our luggage, we were free to leave the airport.

I was satisfied with both Ryanair flights. They delivered what I had paid for. The inter-island flights were too short to give you long and deep reviews but I managed to arrive from where I wanted to where I wanted, so I have nothing to complain about. The only complaint I can give are filthy windows of all ATR airplanes I took.

The adventure has come to an end but there are still some additional islands in the Canary Islands archipelago I want to explore. I will have no problem choosing Ryanair again in the future although I hope I would have more choice next time. For example, an Iberia flight from LJU via MAD seems like a delicious dish on my future flight 'Menu'. I hope the sky chefs will be willing to prepare it when I decide to order it …