Guided by the Stars (Alliance)

[Scarlett]

MS749 CAI-ATH
B737-800 SU-GDZ
Dep: sched 1635 / actual 1648
Arr: sched 1835 / actual 1833

Boarding was via a bus gate, which meant a slower than normal process, but a little tour of the tarmac out to our aircraft.





There are plenty of negatives about MS, but one of them can’t be about their livery: I think it looks great.

We drove past these forlorn looking MS ERJs, covered in dust. Whilst taxiing we passed another regional jet graveyard. I guess domestic tourism has really stagnated during and post-pandemic.






Nacelles but no engines.

Our B737 had seen better days, but the J seats were proper recliners which reminded me of QF international J in the 80s/90s timeframe. No eurobusiness cheapskatery here. Plenty of leg room too, as I was in row two and the guy in front of me in row one was reclined when I boarded (and remained that way throughout - either the seat was broken or the crew didn’t care) but I could get in fine.



A full meal was served with two main choices: beef or fish, I had the former and it was a little tough on some pieces but tasty enough. Two bottles of water were already in the seat pocket in front. There was also an individual entertainment screen on the seat back in front but on mine it had a permanent distortion line through the image and the screen size was the same as when Virgin Blue were offering live TV early in their existence. Same credit card swipe slot on the bottom too. I think some modern phones have bigger screen real estate! Seats looked like they had lived a long life.


Crossing the Egyptian Mediterranean coast at Alexandria. This is the sort of land work the Singaporeans would be proud of.


This is why I like the window seat. This looks like an air mass in the style of a river, with two distinct riverbanks of cloud on either side. Was quite distinct seeing it real.


Anyone an expert at naming Greek islands? Our routing took us close enough that you could see plenty of the Greek islands and Türkiye in the background.

A bit of a circuitous routing to landing at ATH and then a short taxi and onto the gate a couple of minutes early. Pleasant flight and service.

 

[Scarlett]

The first question I had transferring at ATH was whether I needed to collect bags, even though they’d been tagged through to LIS. Wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to collect them to go through customs when first entering the EU. I checked with one customs staff member but even though I tried asking the question three times and emphasised the part about entering the EU, once she’d heard me say ‘collect bags’ as part of the question, she just kept telling me to go to the airline baggage agent.

Agent confirmed I collect them at LIS, so I followed the ‘connecting flights’ signs and that just took me to baggage claim, past check in and back through security with everyone else departing. Another walk though a shopping centre masquerading as an airport and I found the A3 Schengen area lounge: functional, but small and busy on a late afternoon weekday. I’d previously been in the non-Schengen lounge at this, A3’s home port, and found it excellent. I guess you could consider that one as their ‘international lounge’ and the one I was in for this trip as their ‘domestic lounge’ or standard QP. Pity the LH lounge next door wasn’t open as that may have been better.
Found a seat relatively easily, had some food and snacks and waited for my connecting A3 flight to LIS. This was the seventh lounge visited as part of this outbound trip, actually eighth as I visited two at BKK.

 

[Scarlett]

A3722 ATH-LIS
A321-200neo SX-NAA
Dep: sched 2115 / actual 2136
Arr: sched 2345 / actual 2335

Flight time 4 hours. The flight was completely full. There were four guys waiting around the gate clearly on standby and the agent was joking around with them and keeping them updated on their chances of getting on the flight. Other pax in the boarding line must have been from the same group and there was some banter in Greek going on. No J / status boarding or separate line, just join the back of the queues. I did see at least one of the standby group boarding, but not all of them.

Eurobusiness seating is the standard at A3 and on this aircraft they had the little table fitted onto the middle seat for use by aisle and window pax. Legroom was barely adequate and it did not feel in any way like a business class seat. PDB offered.

A hot meal was offered in J with two choices indicated on a menu. I had a chicken meal brought out to me, first in the J cabin, as I had apparently pre-ordered it. I don’t remember doing it when booking the ticket but must have.

The seat and lack of room to move about it in became annoying at the two hour mark and remained uncomfortable until arrival in LIS.


This is what the heel of the boot of Italy looks like at night.


Crossing overhead Barcelona.

Bags took far too long to come out at LIS (over 40 minutes) and again, the Star Alliance Priority tagged ones came out in the last 25%. My golf clubs took even longer to appear on the oversize baggage belt. So long in fact that I just made the last Metro at 0100, to get into the city and the hotel which Mrs and Mstr Scarlett had checked in to earlier in the afternoon.

 

[Flyfrequently]

A3722 ATH-LIS
A321-200neo SX-NAA
Dep: sched 2115 / actual 2136
Arr: sched 2345 / actual 2335


View attachment 409212
Crossing overhead Barcelona.

Great photo of Barcelona @Scarlett

 

[Scarlett]

Today and then in 6 days will be some domestic Portuguese flights with SATA Azores (S4). Today we’re going LIS-PDL out to the main island in the Azores, São Miguel and the city of Ponta Delgada.

I paid a small amount extra (ISTR €15 pp) to choose better seats, maybe in row 1, so we’ll see what that looks like. I think the deal is that they may sell effectively Y+ seating used on longer range flights (to US?) for a cheaper price on these domestic Portuguese flights, but sold as Y. I just checked FR24 and sure enough, after the LIS-PDL sector the same aircraft continues on to JFK so will be interesting to see.

 

[Scarlett]

My summary of *A activity thus far:

SQ - dependably consistent quality. Y+ okay but I don’t think I’d pay for it again over whY. SQ lounge MEL is a bit of a small dungeon and the KrisFlyer Gold lounge SIN T2 remains mediocre. 8/10

ET - fine for overnight flights even with what by modern standards might be an inferior 2-2-2 J product on many or their long haul fleet. ET directed me to the Miracle Lounge at BKK and I’d consider it ordinary. ET’s own lounge at their home port of Addis can be very busy during banked flight departures. 6/10

MS - only a sample size of one but I found them okay. The B737-800 was noticeably old and shabby but they still have J recliners. MS lounge at CAI T2 was small but adequate. Weird design with pax for another lounge required to walk through the MS lounge. 6/10

A3 - new A321neo aircraft but with quite tight eurobusiness product. Relatively uncomfortable for a 4 hour flight. A3 intra-Schengen lounge also busy, seemed overly small and felt a bit cafeteria like. 5/10

Pleasingly, all flights have been on time and all luggage has arrived with me (even if it takes too long to be delivered at the arrival airport).

 

[Scarlett]

The family Scarlett reunited in Lisbon after our separate and circuitous routings. Interestingly, zero delays, missed connections or baggage troubles anywhere along the routes we took. I’m going to say it’s because we’re match fit! (and a great dose of luck!)

We spent the day strolling around the city with only one or two planned stops. The idea was head from our hotel near Saldanha in the direction of the water.








These two guys had sculpted various African animals into the little sand bar.



After many hours walking we caught the metro back to the hotel had a shower and got changed and wandered out to find some dinner. Most local places were packed with fans watching a soccer game and the ebb and flow of the match was pretty much audible everywhere with ohs and ahhs. Someone obviously finally scored as the streets erupted in noise.

The following morning we had a late breakfast in the hotel, packed and then hopped back on the metro to the airport.

 

[Scarlett]

S4125 LIS-PDL
A321-200neo CS-TSG
Dep: sched 1410 / actual 1432
Arr: sched 1540 / actual 1531

SATA Azores was our airline of choice, although cheaper options were available with FR / U2 and TP also flies the route. I’m pretty certain I had booked whY tickets but then paid to select seating and had been able to select seating in row three which instead of the standard short haul 3-3 layout, was displayed as 2-2. I think I assumed eurobusiness style layout but at least with guaranteed free seat in the middle.



As the flight was only two hours, I think I only paid maybe €15 pp to select the seats. S4 does have a Comfort Plus and Comfort Light option to access a more J like product: maybe I did purchase comfort light? I’ll have to back onto the bookings page and see what path I took. Neither the booking confirmation email nor boarding passes had any indication of anything but a standard whY ticket.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find this as our cabin:


…a modern short haul Y+ cabin of 4 rows then bulkheads and curtain to whY. There was no special catering or anything beyond the better seats and their location. Pitch was generous, maybe 86cm. Seat had usb and universal power outlet. Was comfortable for the two hours and the cabin still felt new and clean.

Being located in the middle of the Atlantic, I’d read that sometimes conditions at PDL made landings an interesting proposition and that with poor weather, flights are regularly canceled. Today it was fine and only a little jumping about due to the surface winds just before landing.



A couple of other S4 aircraft were already at PDL. The terminal is small with only a couple of gates and three baggage belts, although does have separate domestic and international arrival areas. Bags arrived quickly and after a short wait we had our Ilha Verde booked manual hire car. Keep right, keep right, keep right…

 

[Scarlett]

Each S4 jet has a marketing word along the fuselage, designed to reflect elements of their home. We flew on Wonder. In the photo of the PDL ramp above you can see Nature and Pure. They also have aircraft with Magical, Inspire, Breathe and Peaceful on their fleet.

I think it works with their livery.

 

[Scarlett]

Catching up now whilst waiting at LIS for the start of return travel, but with a problem: I’m flying IB to CAI today and the first leg LIS-MAD is delayed. I did have about a 2 hour connection in MAD but that is shrinking fast.



I received an email as I was waiting to check-in, from IB, telling me there will be a delay, but no info of how long in that email. Helpfully, the departures board says there will be an update at 1200… but nothing yet.
FR24 is saying a planned 1355 departure, so that’s a significant chunk of my two hours gone!

 

[Scarlett]

If all goes well I’ll have about 35 mins to make the T4 to T4S transfer at MAD which should be doable. Luggage may be a different story.

IB check in staff at LIS didn’t even acknowledge there was a delay.

 

[Scarlett]

Some Azores imagery:


The jagged volcanic rock headland near our rented apartment.


Our rented Clio got us around, but it had seen better days. Ilha Verde rentals were easy to deal with.


We drove out to the western end of the island to the natural warm water outflow point - down there somewhere.


This area was from a ‘recent’ eruption event: late 1800’s istr.

The images of the warm water ‘bay’ are still on Mrs Scarlett’s phone as I decided to get in the water. It was very rough and no one else was in the relatively small rocky bay. There were a couple of ladders going down into the water and some ropes strung across the bay. (only about 15m across)
The waves crashing in every 20 sec or so meant only those confident in the water would consider getting in. I’ve played water polo in the past so am a confident swimmer, but even then I was planning to just use the ladder to enter and keep a hold of that until I could feel the current effects. As it was I held onto the ladder the whole time. Sometimes holding on with both hands and others I could just hold on loosely between waves. Water was cool entering. After a wave had come in and the seawater then flowed back out I could feel the warm water on my legs when pushed away from the rock. Was nice enough to stay there for about ten minutes but couldn’t really move about much. Two guys got in shortly after I got out but no one else was game.

The warm water is a natural volcanically heated spring flowing into the ocean at that point.

 

[Scarlett]

We then went around the headlands a little further to a black sand beach where Mstr Scarlett ran about for a bit and as it was getting late we stopped in for a pizza in a local village when driving back. Lovely little place.



When I got out for a game of golf the same black sand featured in many of the bunkers. Plenty of black rock dry stone walls about too.





The was Batalha GC. Looked like they’d had a water pump problem recently with quite a few dead patches of grass around the course.

 

[Scarlett]

We also headed out to the town of Furnas with the plan to ride bikes around the volcanic lake area there, but no bikes to be found on that day. My research indicated they could be hired from the volcanic fumaroles area.

It was difficult to get through the town itself as they were having some sort of procession / religious activity though the centre of the town and roads were closed.


Many of the narrow roads had these azalea leaves and flowers neatly arranged in the middle of the road. Townspeople were sprinkling water on them and raking them into specific rectangular shapes.


The flowers were really featured near two of the town’s churches.




Anyone who has been to the NZ volcanic regions would scoff at the minor display near Furnas, but for only €3 per adult it was a nice area to go for a late afternoon walk.




Those little mounds you can see above were holes being used to put pots inside. I don’t know whether they were just local people or staff from specific restaurants, but they were using the steam for cooking. The holes seemed about 50cm deep and same diameter and had wooden lids that could be placed on top of them. You could here the boiling sounds coming from some of the open ones.


Path around the lake was very pleasant for a walk.

 

[Scarlett]

S4164 PDL-FNC
A321-200neo CS-TSJ
Dep: sched 1235 / actual 1333
Arr: sched 1515 / actual 1548

This Azores Air A321 neo was the sister ship of the one we flew out to Ponta Delgada and was named ‘Peaceful’. Straight out of the gate and across to the aircraft.





S4 use a small fleet of Dash8’s for inter island flying.



The cabin and service was a mirror of our earlier S4 flight and was a comfortable way to spend a couple of hours. Usually the leg between these two ports is flown by Dash8 so we might have just been lucky.

 

[Scarlett]

The Azores island of Ilha de Sao Miguel was nice but more rural than I was expecting. We stayed in an apartment just out of the main city of Ponta Delgada and that was fine for getting around the island.

Although volcanic it wasn’t as dramatic as we’ve found on Madeira. The streets were narrow in many of the towns and villages and small cars were the norm.

 

[Scarlett]

In Madeira the relief was crazy, especially driving around the main city of Funchal. Tiny roads and quite steep when heading up or down. The clutch really got a work out at times as did the brakes. Lots of stopping to allow opposite direction traffic to pass.

The airport itself has been extended on stilts out over a bay, but still has vertical drop offs at both ends. The hillside is close to the inland side of the runway as well.


Some rock views on finals.


Crowds out on the balcony at FNC. I assume they’re waiting for their departure.


The euro crowd. Plenty of TUI and Condor flights scheduled, so I guess the island is popular with Germans.

 

[Scarlett]

Our time in Madeira was shorter than in the Azores and I think that was probably for the best. Definitely more party life and tourists on Madeira and a more busy vibe, not helped by the daily infestation of the cruising crowd.

Walking around was okay, but driving was quite the experience. Google maps and Sygic were invaluable. Even with the directions it was still sporting doing hill starts in a manual hire car on some very steep streets when at a stop sign. And with plenty of other traffic. I learnt on a manual, as did Mrs Scarlett, but it still made for some extra stress.


The apartments where we stayed were all named after cities and in fact each floor was a different continent!




Swap black sand beaches for plenty of pebble ones.


Cruise ships dock right in the city centre harbour.


Mstr Scarlett wanted to visit this museum. Some famous soccer bloke from Madeira.


The fact that his junk is one of the least tarnished parts of the statue is probably concerning.

It’s not so much a museum as a monument to the many, many trophies and awards from his career.


I’m not really a fan of the round ball game so whilst it was an impressive collection; a Carling Cup versus a Euro something else cup doesn’t mean much to me.

 

[Scarlett]

Whilst in Madeira Mrs Scarlett went up into the hills for a hike and dropped the young’un and I off in the town of Monte which sits directly up the hills above Funchal. We were going to have a look around the town and then catch the cable car back down to the city.

It is a very nice village with the botanic gardens situated handily.



We were going to take this method of transport down the hill:


…but then Mstr Scarlett spied an alternative that he was adamant we had to try.







Yes, it is what it looks like: you head downhill in a glorified laundry basket on wooden rails, guided only by two locals and their athleticism! On public roads, in traffic!

With my wallet €35 lighter (cash only) for the ten minute journey, we joined the queue.

The trip wasn’t as out of control as Mstr Scarlett would have liked, but as he’s going through a JDM car phase and loves to play drifting car games online with his mates, he was most impressed with the laundry basket drifting around the corners sideways. Also, the trip only takes you about half way back to central Funchal so there was a 20 minute walk downhill at the end of it. (massive generalisation follows: or, if you are a fat/old/both cruise tourist there were plenty of taxis loitering around the end point - although I’m getting older and rounder as the years go by, I’m still walking whenever possible!)


We’re off down the first hill!


Special ‘driving in the left’ road to accommodate laundry baskets!


There was a section of about 300m where the road wasn’t steep enough and the local lads earned their money pulling the basket rather than ‘steering’ it.


When you get to the end point, the baskets get lifted up onto a truck and driven back to the start point in Monte, whilst the ‘carrigeers’ are bussed back up. On a normal day they do about seven trips each.

 

[Scarlett]

There was of course some golf played on a spectacular hilly course situated high above the FNC airport.







Noting my earlier comment about walking, even though the green fee rate included a golf cart in the cost, I chose to take a trolley and to walk. The course has 27 holes and because the other members of the family were still off exploring and were late getting back I ended up playing the full 27. The late sunset time of 1944 helped! Mind you it was pretty dark putting out on the final green.

Below was I think the 4th last hole and Sun had already disappeared behind the mountains.