Barra Day Trip - 1 July 2017
Well after saying on my Innsbruck trip report that I rarely post trip report these days - this is now my second on the same day! Anyway, another interesting trip to a spectacular place. This time it is to Barra in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. This is the only place in the world were scheduled flights use the beach as a runway.
I have been wanting to do this trip to Barra for several years but never got around to booking it. In early 2017 I decided to book it for July (hoping for good weather!).
Barra airport as shown on Google maps
Er, where are the runways???
I booked this as a return. Surprisingly there were four rotations operating that day on the route, so I decided to take the first flight out, have a few hours in Barra, and then get the BRR-GLA back on the third rotation.
GLA-BRR-GLA - £158.13
BE6851 0940d, 1055a
BE6856 1520d, 1630a
When I went the flights were Flybe flights but operated by Loganair. As of September 2017 Flybe and Loganair split so now Loganair operate and market the flights under their own flight numbers.
I came down from work to LHR on Friday evening to catch the late flight to GLA. Had a few hours in the Concorde Room (CCR) in LHR T5 and had a few drinks and something to eat. As I commented on the Innsbruck TR, I won’t put any photos of T5 experience on here, there are plenty of reports on the CCR already anyway if you want to see what it looks like.
At GLA I had booked a room at the airport Premier Inn which was perfectly fine for £60. It was a 5 minute walk from the airport.
It turned out that a fellow bar fly FT’er @
Filthy Monkey was also heading up to GLA but from LGW and arriving a bit later. I ended up heading back to the airport to meet him and we went to his house which is a few minutes away to catch up. I eventually made my way back to the Premier Inn for around 2am.
In the morning I headed off to the airport, left my rucksack at left luggage so all I was taking was my camera bag, went through security which was quick, and had a restorative breakfast and coffee. I wandered off after that to find our plane which was at gate 3 on the D pier.
The route exclusively uses DHC-6 Twin Otters which have 19 seats. The first few rows are in a 1x2 configuration, there is no “A” down near the exit at the back, and then the back row against the bulkhead has 3 seats.
On the way out I was sat in 2A as I thought it would give good views. The plane was fairly full, so maybe 12-14 people. In the second photo the person checking the boarding passes at the steps is the first officer - she also did the safety demo later on.
Unusually there is no cockpit door or separation of the cockpit from the cabin on these aircraft, you can see in for the entire flight. After the safety demo the pilots did say conditions were a bit dodgy at Barra, so it was possible we wouldn’t be able to land. But we would go anyway and hopefully things would have improved a bit by the time we arrived.
Video of our take-off from GLA.
After the late night I did nod off for a bit during our flight. As you may expect there was nothing in terms of cabin service - there was no one to serve anything anyway, and the seat belt signs I think remained on for the full flight. Unless it isn’t obvious, there is no toilet onboard so you better go beforehand or be prepared to keep those legs crossed!
We were soon beginning our approach in to Barra.
And the video of our landing, surprisingly smooth.
After landing we pulled up near the “terminal” and everyone got off, with a few folks stopping for photos.
