After few hours at the very nice and quite AC Maple Leaf Lounge boarding was announced so I headed to the gate and had a very close and beautiful view of the beauty:
Oh, I love those elegant windshield wiper
Upon entering the aircraft saw this nice welcome plaque that I missed in the former flight:
I went to the seat and soon afterwards a flight attendant came and introduced himself to me; he was very nice throughout the flight although somewhat mechanical in his approach. Anyway, for the pre-flight drink he offered gin and bitter-lemon cocktail which was enthusiastically accepted ^
After a few minutes we started rolling towards the runway and I relaxed in my seat and started watching a film; perhaps I was a bit hasty when I wrote before that the screen is too far from the seat. It still seems a bit awkward to me but the viewing experience is definitely not bad.
And then things got wrong…. halfway on the taxiway we stopped and the captain made a brief announcement in Spanish about some regulations of the airport and that we will had to stop for a couple of minutes. It was not clear what was happening and as the announcement was made only in Spanish (which I understand) some pax were confused as now we were not moving for more than ten minutes. And then I looked from the window:
Firemen with their helmets on, this cannot be a good sign
And then there were three:
And then four
:
And then came a guy with a video camera:
And then he started filming the right engine:
At this point people started to go around the cabin, as it was clear that we are not going anywhere soon. Still, no sign of life from the flight deck and the cabin crew seemed puzzled as we were. After ten minutes people on the left side got excited about something so I also went to see what is going on. That was not encouraging at all
:
Now we were sitting on the ground for 45 minutes and honestly even I (the seasoned FT’er) became worried
There was clearly something wrong with the aircraft and it seemed plausible that we will be towed back to the gate. It doesn’t feel very good to be on an aircraft that is about to depart with all that attention and inspection from the outside (and no information whatsoever on the situation). Secondly, thinking few steps ahead I began to consider my other options as my flight from MAD to TLV was on a separate PNR. So I started consulting ExpertFlyer for other options to MAD, not that there were many….
But then the vehicles around the aircraft began to go away:
Good news? Yes! Finally the captain came on and explained that airport personnel saw smoke coming out of the right engine and for that reason they had to make a thorough examination of it and that everything is okay. Fair enough, and this time he also repeated it in English. I would not say that I felt 100% safe but then I said to myself that after all this (German) inspections it should be fine. And it was???? The rest of the flight was uneventful, and the service was excellent this time as well as was the food, although again I cannot comment on all the ingredients
As I promised I took a picture of the seat in its fully flat position:
And as well as the first few rows of Espacio +, which does seem to have more legroom even if not that much more (officially it’s 2”, I think):
J cabin from the Espacio + section:
And last but note least a photo of 5A/B for
tynmar 
We landed in MAD an hour late than scheduled and I headed to the Air Rooms on the land-side of T4 as I decided to deprive myself from the delights of a night at the lounge, even if it has a relaxation room. I did not get much sleep the night before and another night like this with a five hours flight to take was too much (although by that point I was upgraded to J on IB’s A319 mid-haul which is a nice one). All on that you could read in the concluding post, soon.