SI651 SOU-JER 22 SEP 12 (ECONOMY)

Booked flights at fairly short notice for trip to Jersey, previous trip had been so totally unimpressive that I looked at other options. There are not too many options, a trawl of the net and the cheapest was BA from Gatwick or Easyjet from Luton. The other option was Blue Island from Southampton – very convenient airport for me. Never flown with Blue Island, but flight times suited and cost was cheaper than other flights from Southampton. The price shown is the price you pay – no surcharge for seats, hold baggage or credit card booking fees.
Online check-in the previous night and got SEQ 02, allocated seat and printed off boarding pass.
Arrived at airport 90 mins before departure, check in desk fairly busy and took about 5 mins to drop bag and confirm everything else was ok. Southampton being a small airport (compared to other airports I use) only had one security lane in operation and took 15 mins to get through. Once through security time for a quick look at the duty free shop, get a newspaper then upstairs to Costa coffee and wait for boarding. Boarding commenced at 1440, even though it’s only a short walk to the aircraft we were put on a bus from the gate to the aircraft. The aircraft was a Jetstream 32 – the smallest aircraft I’ve ever been on! Seating consisted of 6 rows of 2 +1 configuration. The crew consisted of two:- captain & co-pilot, and the co-pilot does the safety demonstration before takeoff. No over head rack so hand luggage under the seat or could be left at rear of plane. No in-flight entertainment or refreshments but for a flight of only 30 mins not a problem. Took off in northerly direction, shortly followed by a sharp left turn and headed over Southampton & the Isle of Wight before heading to Jersey. Being such a small aircraft I was expecting it to be a bit rough, but flight was surprisingly smooth. Approached Jersey from the north-west making a sharp left turn to land over St Ouens Bay. Flight time was 33 minutes and took a further 5 minutes to reach the gate. Very quickly off the aircraft collected bag and then headed to St Helier. The airport bus runs frequently and the bus was equipped with free Wi-Fi and only took about 30 mins.

Blue Islands is an airline I want to try.
Along with Aurigny.

Thanks for the report!

Short notice trip to Jersey ehh.... but it isn't April

Being honest I have never heard of Blue Island airline before, also never heard of a plane without a single member of cabin crew.. I suppose for a 30 min flight they see it as dead weight..

Thank you for opening my eyes to this, glad it was a fair flight and cheers for posting

They also fly into LCY don't they?

Only found Blue Islands when I used skyscanner.net, surprised to find prices better than the other lot that fly between SOU & JER.
Yes, they also fly from LCY to Jersey but not on a Saturday, think they use larger aircraft so might be one CC!