Airline: Ryanair
Flight #: FR967
Route: GOT-STN
Class: Economy
Seat: 25A
Date: Wednesday 22nd April 2026
Having had an interesting and yet chilled day exploring Gothenburg, I was back at the airport nice and early ready to catch my flight back to the UK. As with the flight out, I’d be flying home with Ryanair onboard one of their Boeing 737-800s on one of the last flights of the day to depart the Swedish airport. But before we got to the flying, I needed to make my way through the airport formalities and hopefully not get waylaid by the now infamous EES border controls. If you haven’t read the other posts from this trip, you can do so here and here.
The coach from the city centre dropped me off right outside the entrance to departures and, with no bag to check-in, it was a short walk to the boarding pass check before heading up an escalator to security. Whilst there was only one lane open, there was also only a very small queue and so it wasn’t long until I was taking my liquids and electronics out of my bag ready for the old-style scanners. As neither me or my bag were pulled for extra checks, it was a quick process and I was through into departures just seven minutes after stepping off the coach. In departures, a lot of the shops and cafes were beginning to close for the day, however I was still able to get a drink as the airport had water bottle refill points outside every set of toilets, making it easy to stay hydrated and saving a few euros at the same time.
With my gate on the board but passport control still being closed, I settled down at a seat with a view over the airfield to watch the aircraft for a bit. Unfortunately, a few seats down someone had decided to do join a teams call without headphones, although given it was almost 2000, I can’t imagine it was a Swedish business call. Turning my attention to the aircraft outside, it wasn’t a particularly busy evening, however there were a few less usual aircraft that I don’t get to see in the UK including an SAS CRJ, a Finnair E190 and an A321 of Danish charter airline Sunclass.
About two hours before departure I move down towards passport control to find it still closed, with it eventually opening around 90 minutes before our flight. With the ongoing EES issues, many airlines having been telling people to get to the airport earlier, but ultimately if passport control isn’t open, it doesn’t really matter how early you turn up. Initially only one window was open meaning that even as 4th in the queue it took me a while to get through. As with many smaller European airports, there wasn’t much the other side of passport control, with only three gates, a small café, some toilets and a vending machine that didn’t seem to work. So not the place you want to be waiting for a particularly long time.
#BoardingNotBoarding started at 2130, with us being herded into the gate area, although not before the gate agent waited for ages for the remaining priority boarding passengers to appear from the ether. The inbound passengers started to pass along an adjacent corridor around 20 minute later and at 2200 we began actual boarding, with once again, a jetbride being surprisingly provided. With my seat at the back of the aircraft, I headed outside and onto the tarmac, giving me an opportunity to grab a photo of our aircraft before heading up to the rear door, stepping onboard at 2203, more than half an hour after the start of the #BoardingNotBoarding process.
The aircraft for our flight back to Stansted was 9H-QBD, an almost 11-year-old Boeing 737-800 operated by Malta Air, having originally been delivered to Ryanair in June 2015 before being transferred to Malta Air in January 2020. Prior to operating the inbound flight from Stansted, the aircraft had done round trips to Bergamo, Aarhus and Bremen from the Essex airport earlier in the day. Onboard, this aircraft had the more modern streamlined interior which feels as though you get a few more millimetres of leg room and my seat, 25A, had a reasonably placed window, although it was slightly blocked by the seat in front.
Everyone was onboard the aircraft pretty quickly and pushback was at 2220, five minutes before our scheduled departure time. Our taxi began a few minutes later, before we took off from Gothenburg’s runway 03 at 2231. Despite the darkness, I was able to get a pretty good view of the city out of the window, although this soon disappeared as we climbed away, with there eventually just being inky blackness outside. The Danish coast came around 15 minutes after take-off, with it only taking us 11 minutes to cross the peninsula and the rest of the flight was uneventful apart from some minor turbulence over the north sea that necessitated the seat belts sign being turned back on.
We crossed the UK coast to the south of Southwold just over an hour after departure at 2340, and crossed to the north of Ipswich with the “10 minutes to landing” announcement coming at 2345. Initially it looked like we were coming in to approach Stansted from the North but we actually ended up heading passed the airport and looping round to arrive from the south. Landing at 2359L, N351UP, a UPS Boeing 767F was waiting to line up for departure and, even with a short taxi to the stand, it was on its way to Cologne before we had parked. As we pulled onto stand at 2304 (16 minutes early) it turned out to be the same stand as I had departed from earlier in the day and, five minutes later I was stepping off the aircraft.
It was a bit of a walk from our stand to passport control but, having paid for fast track, I skipped the queue and was through into departures just two minutes after arriving at passport control, making it the best £20 I’ve ever spent. After an obligatory stop at WH Smiths to remortgage my house to get supplies for the drive home, I made it onto the 2328 Stansted Express service, 30 minutes earlier than I expected. In fact, so good was the fast-track passport control, I was at my car in Bishops Stortford just 31 minutes after stepping off the aircraft!
This was a pretty standard Ryanair flight, with not much to talk about given the late departure time meaning dozed for a lot of the flight. Whilst the streamlined interior does provide slightly less padding, it does provide slightly more leg room in return, and the food availability and service was all standard for Ryanair. The early arrival back at Stansted, combined with fast-track passport control (bought through Stansted not Ryanair) really did make a difference though, meaning I got home just before 0100, rather than well after.
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 3*
Food 3*
Service 5*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 16/25 (read about my rating system here!)
