Airline: Ryanair
Flight #: FR2682
Route: EIN-STN
Class: Economy
Seat: 25F
Date: Monday 31st March 2025
My trip to Eindhoven and The Netherlands had unfortunately only been partially successful and, having ran out of things to do in a closed Eindhoven, I was back at Eindhoven Airport a few hours ahead of my flight home. I’d once again be flying with Ryanair to London’s Stansted airport, the low-cost carrier’s largest base and an airport I’m not a fan of arriving into as its quite often chaotic. Would it be any different on this occasion? Time would tell, but with some time to waste before heading through to the departure lounge, I spent some time on the viewing terrace, before joining the security queue around 1830, just at the start of the evening rush. You can read the other posts from my Eindhoven trip here, here and here.
Despite it being the start of one of the peak times for the airport, with eight flights departing in the next couple of hours, as I passed through only three security lanes were open although all were of the new style of x-ray machine with thankfully reduced delays. Whilst Eindhoven Airport does sell access to the fast-track security lane, it’s a pricey €12.50 per person and, given I had plenty of time, I decided to stick with the standard queue with it taking about 15-20 minutes to get through to duty free. I was glad to have headed through when I did though as the queue only seemed to get longer, and there were no signs of any extra lanes being opened.
For what is a relatively small regional airport, Eindhoven has a pretty large and modern departure lounge, with plenty of seating including some that is ‘hidden’ upstairs near the bar and lounge. The airport clearly has big ambitions as the terminal building is currently being extended, meaning one end of the existing building feels a bit like a construction site with wooden hoardings, however other than that its not particularly noticeable. As I had plenty of time before my gate would be announced, I spent a small fortune on an English language magazine in duty free, before heading up to the bar to grab some food and a pint. Dinner ended up being a selection of fried snacks, a dish I can only describe as ‘British Tapas’.
Surprisingly, given gates are usually announced 45-50 minutes before departure, the gate for my flight was announced over an hour before departure at 2010. Passport control was an absolute breeze, meaning I was at the gate around 2015, then having 20 minutes or so to read my magazine before the inevitable BoardingNotBoarding started. Eindhoven seem to take premature boarding to a new level, as they have what can only be described as cattle pens outside, and before the inbound flight had even arrived we were being taken down to this covered queuing system to wait. Thankfully it was an unseasonably warm March evening as not even the views of the aircraft would have made up for queuing outside on a cold or wet evening.
Five minutes after we had been queued up outside, the inbound flight landed and taxied past where we were all waiting to reach the stand. EI-DLC was the aircraft for my flight, a 19-year-old Boeing 737-800 which was delivered to Ryanair in January 2006 and has flown for them its entire career. As we waited, I was also able to see an Airbus A330-MRTT of the Royal Netherlands Air Force pushing back from the military apron, and a Luftwaffe Airbus A400M landing and taxiing in. Almost 20 minutes after we’d been taken outside, the final inbound passenger left the aircraft and we were moved into our third (and hopefully final) BoardingNotBoarding position at the bottom of the aircraft steps.
Actual boarding finally started just after 2100, and I found my seat, 25F, towards the back of the cabin. This aircraft had the old ‘chunky’ interior, and despite being a window seat, 25F had mostly aircraft wall rather than window limiting both my view and space for my right arm. I also wasn’t lucky on this occasion as when boarding was complete, I was in a full row with no spare seats or rows anywhere nearby. Thankfully the flight was quite short and would have us time travelling as the 55-minute flight would land at 2110 UK time, five minutes ‘earlier’ than our 2115 Dutch time departure.
With the aircraft doors closed at 2110, pushback started five minutes later, and we began our taxi to the runway at 2120. Despite Eindhoven being quite a small airport, it’s military use means it has a long runway and our taxi along one of the parallel taxiways to the threshold of runway 04 took quite a while with us eventually taking off at 2136. The flight across the North Sea was uneventful, with the most exciting thing to mention being that the crew left the lights dimmed for quite a while after take-off, something I certainly didn’t mind!
I think this quite possibly ended up being the shortest flight I’ve ever taken as we were only in the air for 34 minutes before we were landing on Stansted’s runway 04 at 2110 local time. Unfortunately, our on-time arrival was then diminished by us having to wait for ground staff before we could park up on stand 30 and board the buses to arrivals. In the end it took about 20 minutes from landing to reaching the terminal building and beginning the walk to the dreaded passport control. Genuinely I think passport control at Stansted is the worst in the UK, with it often having horrendous queues and taking forever to get back through.
Given how short the flight from Eindhoven had been, I was worried I was going to spend longer queuing to cross the UK border than in the air and so I did something I hadn’t done before, pay the £15 for fast-track passport control. Typically it probably wasn’t worth it on this occasion as the main queue seemed to be moving quite quickly, however during school holidays I’d certainly recommend this especially if you’re trying to catch the hourly train towards Cambridge. The fast-track queue certainly lived up to its name though, as I didn’t even pause before reaching the passport desk and I was into arrivals at 2135.
As I headed down to Stansted’s underground railway station I reflected on this very short flight back from The Netherlands (actually I was reeling from how much I’d spent at WHSmiths but that’s beside the point). If you set your expectations of Ryanair appropriately for the amount you pay, they usually meet them and they did again on this flight, although the BoardingNotBoarding for this flight was at another level. At the end of the day though, the seat was fine for a short flight, the flight was safe and on time and the staff were all friendly.
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 3*
Food 3*
Service 5*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 16/25 (read about my rating system here!)
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