It was very cold that day, with some heavy rain (and melting snow) showers. All this with a wind of 33KT and guts up to 48-50 KT. It'll be shaking I thought
The day before I've done the internet check in for my flight which enabled me to directly go to the security control instead of doing the very long queues at the check in desks. Everything was a little bit messy at the airport due to the bad weather. A lot of flights were cancelled and every flight had a big delay (the smallest being somewhere around 1h).
So after being checked by security I went to the gate. The airport of AMS seems quite old inside, but is still very comfortable and nice to walk through.
At the gate nothing special was mentioned behind my flight. So I still had the hope that we would take off on time
But as the time passed, the visibility dropped, the shower increased and the wind didn't become weaker. It was really impressive to look outside ad see that weather. I couldn't see the other end of the airport. And every time you heard a big roaring you knew that a plane was taking off. All you could see was a big amount of water being sprayed all over the airfield. Then finally came the time for our scheduled boarding. But nothing happened. We had to wait some 50 minutes until we could finally go inside the bus which would transport us to the plane.
Flight AF8253 AMS-LYS, operated as KL1253
Fokker 100 registered as PH-KLG
Scheduled/actual departure time: 14:05/15:15
Scheduled/actual arrival time: 15:45/16:40
Seat 16A (window) - Load factor: 100%
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/784340/L/
After boarding the plane we still had to wait some additional 20 minutes before starting the engines. Due to the bad weather we finally had a 1 hour delay. The seat pitch on the KL Fokker 100 is quite standard (though smaller then on the 32s and B737s). Now that the engines were started we quickly taxied to runway 24 (Kaagbaan) and eventually took off two planes behind a B744F of Emirates SkyCargo.
Some 5-10 seconds after take off we were already in the clouds, so unfortunately I couldn't enjoy the landscape of the Netherlands...and to my surpsie the turbulence inside the coulds was very weak. Seeing all the weather on the ground one could suspect the opposite but apparently both are independent from each other.
When we broke through the clouds we were nearly at our cruising altitude and soon after the FA's started their service. We had the choice between a cheese and a ham sandwich. I had the ham sandwich with a coffee. The sandwich was ok but could have been slightly bigger. But what can you ask more on a 1h25 flight
Then after eating the alps near geneva could be seen on the left of the plane. Fortunately it had been snowing the night before all over France and the landscape that I was able to see was great. Seeing all the white fields and the black street is something different than the usual green landscape. It's like a patchwork of black spots (forests) and white ones (plains).
The flight went fast and it was now time to start our descend towards Lyon. We quickly passed some clouds and then landed smoothly on runway 18R. The weather was broken and quite cold (more or less 0°C).
We then docked at the Airbridge and I could have a quick look at the cockpit.
To conclude the flight was nice and uneventful as it should be. The crew did a good and efficient job. The delay was not the fault of KL and I would certainly recommend KL.
The return LYS-CDG-AMS will follow.
I hope you enjoyed reading the report.
Chris
PS: a few pictures will follow
