Agadir (Morocco) & Tenerife!

The trips to Agadir and Tenerife were the longest sectors I’ve done so far.  I went to Agadir on the 7th, and then a few days later, on the 12th was my trip to Tenerife.  The flight to Agadir was 3.8 hours and Tenerife was a bit longer and took 4.4 hours.  It was nice to have a long cruise, giving me plenty of time to reflect on the past few months, or even years of training.  University now seems like a past era, faded away – another life, however flight school is still fresh in my mind.  I didn’t manage to get any photos of Agadir, as it was night time, but the temperature in Agadir and Tenerife was a pleasant 21C, in comparison to the cold temperatures back in England!  I feel much more relaxed now and my confidence is increasing and with that my performance and capacity as well.  I’m still learning of course, and there’s always something new to learn and experience.

It’s nice to hear the local pleasantries over the radio as you travel through the different boundaries and the one for Morocco was “Aslamu’alaikum” which translates to “peace be upon you”.  Agadir airport was dimly lit at night, so we had to be careful as we taxied in and extra-vigilent.  It’s interesting to see what all the different airports we fly to are like, they all have a certain character.  Agadir airport had armed guards, on the airside entrance to the terminal, which I’ve not seen in Europe.  I made the most of the pleasant temperature during the walk-around, as it’ll be a while till we get the same in UK!

The flight to Tenerife was during the day, so it was much more interesting in terms of the view outside!  I’ve never been to Tenerife before, even for holiday, so it was an interesting trip for me which I looked forward to.  I have seen the video re-enactment of the Tenerife disaster on the Air Crash Investigation TV series, so it was an island that I have read and heard about a lot.  However, the airport we flew to was the Tenerife South airport, which is the newer airport and the Tenerife disaster happened at the older, Tenerife North (formerly Los Rodeos) airport.  What’s interesting is that the weather between the North and the South of the island is quite different due to the volcano in the middle of the island.  Tenerife North is usually cooler and wetter in comparison to the dryer and warmer Tenerife South.  In addition, Tenerife North is about 2000ft above sea level, so it tends to get fog (which was in part to blame for the tenerife disaster), whilst Tenerife South is much closer to sea level at 200ft.