After the flight to London, I decided to fly to the more sunny part of the world and visit the "island of neverending spring": Tenerife.
The flight started again in the early morning. About 300 passengers were boarded and we start to taxi at Heathrow.
There was light traffic, however I had to run out to the kitchen and we delayed 3 minutes on takeoff.
Heathrow was still sleeping as we started our initial climbing, then later turned toward Southampton to leave the English coasts.
Again we were over the Channel still climbing for cruise level.
Some minutes later we reached cruise level and were flying over Bretagne. At FL360 the colours became strange brownish at some angle...?
After about 1 hour fling over the Biscaya- bay we reached land again for some minutes, the northern tail of Spain. To the south, La Coruna could be seen for a while.
After some more minutes we passed Portugal and we could see the Portugal coasts far-far away. Then for a long 2 hours period there was nothing just open sea. It was about 9 AM, passengers started to wake up when pilots suddenly spotted LAND on the horizon. We arrived!
Because of the winds we had to land in opposite direction at Reina Sofia, alias Tenerife Sur Int'l Airport. Passengers enjoyed the view because we had to make a full turn around the island. We were lucky that visibility was good because this tall hill could cause many troubles.
We flew in a fantastic weather, nice cumulus clouds covered the sky as we were descending from transition level.
We left the island behind us at 5000' when decided to turn left to catch the localizer for landing on the other side coast of Tenerife.
There was a moderate sidewind, and I still did not "feel" enough this huge plane and its weight so the approach was a bit tricky again. Touchdown was a little left to the center which I corrigated when the nose gear touched.
Unfortunately there was not enough free heavy gates so the tower did not want to give permission for parking, but passengers were very excited about the upcoming holiday, so the captain found a free gate with enough space
Thank you for flying with us once again.
