REYKJAVIK 17-21 May 13
Our son when asked what he would like for his 21st
birthday replied a trip to Iceland as Icelandair Holidays were doing offers.
This sounded reasonable as both my wife and I also wanted to see something
of Iceland. I left the choice of hotel to them and was delighted to find
they had unwittingly picked the ‘Natura’ which is adjacent to the visitors’
ramp at downtown Reykjavik airport!
We flew from Glasgow on-board B757 TF-IST and
noted amongst the usual suspects at GLA on 17/5/13 was EI-FAS ATR72 of Aer
Arran. The 1 hour 52 minute flight took us to Keflavik the ‘International’
airport for Iceland and this is @ 40 kms from Reykjavik.
KEF 17/5/13
TF-BBE 737F Bluebird
LZ-MDC and LZ-MDD A320’s of WOW
VP-BPU A320 Ural Airlines landed after us and
checking Flightradar24 it appeared to be on its way from Budapest to the USA
– off lease?
Icelandair operate waves of arrivals at KEF,
typically early morning arrivals from the Americas then most planes (between
8 and 10) leave within an hour of one another to various points in Europe.
They all return within an hour mid-afternoon before all departing once again
for the Americas. Seems to work and the terminal isn’t too crowded at the
peak time and with all check-in desks serving all destinations this
seemed to speed things along nicely.
Outside the Icelandair arrival waves the airport
is very quiet.
Our rooms at the ‘Natura’ were on the 4th
floor and at one end of the corridor a large window gave
commanding views of just about the whole airfield
with the visitors ramp being just below and across the runway the domestic
terminal/ramp area easily viewable. The visitors ramp is used by aircraft on
delivery across the Atlantic and the occupants changed most days the only
exception being N955BW Metroliner which had an engine cowl missing and lots
of oil under the starboard engine!
RKV 17/5/13
TF-JMG DHC8, TF-JMO/JMT Fk50’s Flugfelag Islands
N525FF C525
N684KW P.68
N955BW Metroliner N690BH RC690
N430TW B.200
N135JM PA-46
RKV 18/5/13
TF-JMR Fk50 Flugfelag Islands
TF-ORA J.31 Eagle Air
TF-SYN AS332
N6RA C.425
N188ST C.560XL
N708SP Learjet
RKV 19/5/13
TF-ORD J.31 Eagle Air
TF-JMN Fk50 Flugfelag Islands
RKV 20/5/13
TF-JMM Fk50 Flugfelag Islands
TF-HDU AS365 OY-EKC
Falcon 7x
OY-RCC Bae146 Atlantic Airways
N124PC C.206
Adjacent to the hotel is the hanger of Eagle Air.
I enquired in their office if I could have a look inside and was duly taken
round by the duty manager – very civilised and worth the effort:
TF-ORB C.207
TF-ORF C.404 tail-less after a landing mishap
TF-MYV PA-31
(TF-ORE) PA-31 stripped down but c/n plate gave 31-7712096
TF-ORC J.31
Eagle Air
KEF 21/5/13
Amongst the fleet of Icelandair B757’s was TC-ANA
A319 Turkish Govt in for a fuel stop on its way from the US to home.
TF-ISL B757W took us back to GLA in just 1 hour
and 41 minutes, upon arrival noted were:
D-CGEP Gulf 150 and G-DLAK C.208 Floatplane
The hotel ‘Natura’ is about a 25 minute walk from
downtown Reykjavik although the hotel will give you a bus pass free of
charge to use public transport with the bus stop being opposite the hotel
and the central station is at one end of the ‘main-drag’. We didn’t mind
walking as the weather wasn’t rainy and it was still light at 2300 but when
we did use the bus we were the only occupants.
In conclusion, not a place to visit for number
crunching but with the transatlantic ferry flights using RKV you never know
what to expect and if you like the great outdoors etc. what a beautiful
place Iceland is.