LDY to LHR Loganair Economy

Airline:  Loganair

Flight #: LM657

Route:    LDY-LHR

Class:    Economy

Seat:     12A

Date:     Friday 2^nd June 2023

Following an enjoyable couple of nights in Derry (read about my visit here and here), it was time to head back to England and so I was back at City of Derry airport ready for my flight to Heathrow with Loganair.

The City of Derry airport is a few miles from the city centre and so I had caught the Goldline 234 bus out from the bus station. Thankfully my flight time aligned well with the limited bus service, although be warned this may not always be the case as the buses are only every couple of hours generally. You might therefore have to take a taxi to the airport but I did this on the way into Derry and it was about £15.

The airport is one of the smallest I’ve flown to or from, with the ‘landside’ area containing both the check-in and arrivals areas. In fact there are just six check-in desks (of which one was open for my flight) and one security lane. A small airport does generally make for a quick process though and I was through into the departure lounge by 1655, an hour and 20 minutes before departure.

The departure lounge was probably the largest area of the airport I’d seen so far, with probably enough space for the passengers for both a Ryanair and a Loganair domestic flight leaving at similar times. There was a café and a shop within the lounge along with the two boarding gates and some toilets but that was about it. I decided to find a seat near the gate and settled to watch an episode of ‘The English Game’ whilst I waited to board.

From my position near the gate I was able to see the inbound flight arrive on time at 1740, and I was slightly surprised to see it park nose-in to the terminal as opposed to side-on. However, despite my thinking at the push-back tug would be needed, on departure the pilots managed a very tight turn with the Embraer to taxi out to the runway.

As the aircraft pulled in, I was able to see that it was the same aircraft as for my flight to Derry (read about that here), G-SAJC, a 22-year old Embraer ERJ145. Pre-boarding started about 25 minutes before departure as 1750, and we queued up in what was essentially the terminal’s conservatory for 10-15 minutes before boarding proper started. Just as we started to cross the tarmac towards our aircraft, G-OBSM (a Robinson R44 Raven helicopter) took-off, the only other aircraft movement I saw at the airport.

We departed our stand via a tight turn at 1821 and following a taxi and backtrack down the runway, we took off at 1827 from runway 08 and we immediately heading out over Loch Foyle. From there we headed towards the Binevenagh Area of Natural Beauty and the towns of Coleraine and Portstewart before heading over the top of Belfast. Less than 15 minutes after taking off, we were crossing Northern Ireland’s east coast and as we headed towards north-west England, could see the Scottish coast through the haze.

As we crossed over the Irish Sea, our flight attendant started the in-flight service of tea, coffee or water along with both a Caramel wafer and shortbread. This nicely passed the time and we were soon crossing the English coast over The Wirral just before 1900. After another 38 minutes of flying across the Midlands and northern home counties, we touched down on Heathrow’s runway 09L at 1936 before taxiing to stand 253L, one of the remote stands for terminal 2.

Despite the flight being mostly full (I think 48 of the 49 seats were take), disembarking didn’t take long and we were soon waiting onboard a bus for the gate checked bags and pushchairs were dug out for other passengers. I’ve got to give it to both Loganair and Heathrow Airport, for us to be exiting ‘airside’ into arrivals just 27 minutes after landing is pretty good going and shows one of the advantages of flying with a smaller airline at times.

This flight with Loganair was a nice quick hop across the Irish Sea, with a flight time of just 65 minutes, however I cannot praise the service from both the airport teams and onboard crews enough. Loganair certainly provides an image of being a ‘friendly’ airline and I definitely felt everyone I interacted with was helpful and welcoming. The Embraers are beginning to show their age, however its nice to fly onboard an aircraft with some character occasionally and they do the job perfectly. If you have the option to chose Loganair, I’d certainly recommend them.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     3*

Food               3*

Service             5*

Punctuality         5*

Overall Rating      16/25 (read about my rating system here!)