Round The World and other travels

As this trip was my personal farewell to the BA / Loganair franchise, as opposed to our group farewell in a few weeks' time, I was glad to see that my plane was still in full British Airways livery. As far as I could see, most of the Saab aircraft were by now either all-white or even prematurely carrying the pale blue Flybe underbelly. It was obvious simply from looking around the gate area that the flight was going to be very lightly loaded - maybe a dozen passengers. Boarding started nice and early an we walked the short distance from Gate 1 to the parked aircraft. I climbed the steps and took my seat in 2A. I'd established on the previous year's Islay trip that this was an excellent choice for taking photos, as the window is just ahead of the propeller.

With such a light load to board, we were able to push back five minutes early and make our way to the north-easterly runway for a 1054 take-off. As our cruising altitude of 12,000ft was well above the solid cloud cover, sadly there was very little to be seen. I passed the short time available by having a cup of coffee, accompanied by one of those little two-packs of delicious Walker's biscuits.

As we made our descent, the Isle of Man came into view. We made a scenically impressive approach over the southern tip of the island and the Calf of Man, turning to land in a north-easterly direction. Touchdown was at 1129 and we managed to be on-stand ten minutes ahead of schedule.