A few weeks before the last exam in July I decided to book a flight to Malaga in September, to spend a couple of sunny days at the southern Spanish Coast with two friends of mine, to 'recover' from 'tweede zit'. I chose my outbound flight on 11/9, because this was much cheaper than the days before and after, for obvious reasons.
The cheapest solution was on IB, with a transit in Barcelona on the way to Malaga, and a transit in Madrid on the way back to Brussels. Return fare was 119 €, this was even cheaper than a direct flight with Virgin Express, which hadn't their famous 'First Minute' tariffs at the time of my booking.
At 11/9, we took the train at my hometown (Genk) at 08h50, to arrive at BRU around 11h00. Once at the airport, I was very relaxed, but my fellow travelers, which hadn't much experience in flying, were pretty excited. My relaxedness would soon end! One of my travel companions (19) hadn't ever flown in his life (!). There were very little queues at the Iberia check-in counters, so in no time we received our boarding passes. Our seats were 14D-E-F. After eating some expensive cake we proceeded to gate A50, were our A-320 was already parked. Exactly at the expected boarding time (12u40) we could enter the plane, so it seemed the plane would not get any delay...We were greeted by a friendly Iberia crew. Once seated in the aircraft, we noticed the unadequate legroom --> very uncomfortable. Much less than on an SN A-319. Another thing that got our attention was the very hot cabin temperature, even though it wasn't a hot day. At push-back everybody was already seriously sweating. It was a prelude to a near-nightmare...
Take-off was at 13h20 (scheduled at 13h05), but we would eliminate the small delay in the air, as usual. Even before take-off, the air in the cabin was kind of misty. My friends were scared, but I told them that happens sometimes when starting the airconditioning. After take-off at 25R, the mistyness got worse, and after a few minutes, there was true smoke in all of the cabin, even with an irritating smell. Some passengers had breathing difficulties. Around 5 minutes after take-off, a flight attendant entered the cockpit (seat-belt sign was still on), and after she got out, she made the anouncement we would return to BRU because of safety, and make an emergency landing. At this point, everyone was truly scared, even me. The fact that it was 11/9 certainly wasn't a relieving factor. At this point some passengers were actually crying. The flight attendants, which weren't smiling anymore as before, walked through the cabin assuring people there is no need to be scared. Because of the still very high cabin temperature, a few big bottles of water were given, with the passengers carrying them on to each other. Around 15 minutes after take-off, we already touched down at 25L. While rolling out, a lot of fire trucks were following us. This sight didn't make us happier..But, the landing was perfect, even though we must have had way too much fuel with us to make a 'normal landing'. We taxied to gate A48, were staff were giving us a 'Y-transit card'. We were said to just wait at the gate, and they would give more information after 20 minutes. That particular information was just the anouncement that we would at least be delayed to 14u45. At 14h30, I saw that engine number 2 was open, with mechanics working on it. I told my friends: forget 14h45, an engine problem needs hours to be solved. And right I was...At around 15h00 we received meal vouchers of 13,50 € each, which was nice of Iberia. You see: you don't have to pay for your food on Iberia
. After returning back to A48, we were told that the flight was cancelled. We needed to go to pick up our luggage at arrivals, and proceed to the Iberia ticketing desk to book a new flight 
. I was expecting a veeeeery long queue at the tiny ticketing desk, so I said to myself: the luggage can wait, let's first book our new flight! As such, we were very lucky to be the first passengers at the desk. The guy behind it told he could not issue a new ticket until our electronic ticket was cancelled, and this could only be done after we would have 'physically' left the plane in Malaga. This was only around 17h30. The guy said there were sufficient seats on the BRU-MAD flight of 19h35, and then the MAD-AGP flight of 23h50. We would eventually land in AGP at 01h00. So after we got our new (paper) tickets, we checked-in again and left for gate A49.The rest of my story (the 'hassle free flights') will follow soon...
Cheers
Jelle
Hey, BRU-BRU in 15 minutes on IB? Quite unusual. Frightening trip? I'm not sure every smell of smoke is a sign of a bad malfunctioning.
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