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Taken 26 October 2006 from Newcastle - NCL to Arrecife, Canary Islands (Lanzarote) - ACE

Booked a 7 night flight only deal with Direct Holidays to Lanzarote. The outbound flight being operated by independent charter airline Flyjet and the inbound being operated by parent company MyTravel Airways. I was curious to see what Flyjet were like, starting at check-in it looked not too good. We waited for what seemed like an eternity for their handling agent to process the long queue, got to the front and then our agent's colleague on the next counter halted all check-in while she started blocking off seats for the family she was checking in, resulting in one of our party being sat in row 1 while the rest of us were in 18 - by then the only seats our agent had left to play with!

Boarding was on time and we were bussed across to the aircraft, G-FJEB an ex Air 2000 aircraft which I found out was 17 years old. Inside it looked very tired and dated. The seats seemed ill-fitted with their blue and orange dotted cloth upholstery. Seat pitch was the absolute minimum, you expect it with charter airlines, but actually putting up with it is another matter. A long piece of metal which framed the seat pocket was broken and sticking out into my right shin. The crew were very enthusiastic which was one plus. We were advised that no in-flight entertainment would be provided as when they arrived at the aircraft it was found to be broken, however we were told one of the crew would dance for us if we requested, funny, but am sure there were some passengers who thought it in bad taste for the crew to laugh about it. Another plus is all passengers received a meal on board, today it was cottage pie which was very nice. Some passengers will have paid for a hot meal at time of booking and may well have felt robbed when those who didn't pay got one anyway. The tax free service commenced from the back of the cabin and by the time it reached us half way through it had nothing that we wanted. The aircraft really did show its age and let down the whole experience, just visit the toilet and you will see how old it is.

Overall they did get us to Lanzarote and kept us fed and watered for the duration so you can't complain. however I would only use Flyjet again if they upgraded their fleet of aged 757's. I hear a premium carrier has bought them anyway so maybe they won't be around much longer.