Review of Ryanair flight Dublin → Newquay in Economy

Southwestern UK Airport Tour!

Dublin Airport at 5am!

After a night at the Clayton Hotel just off Dublin Airport, I took the shuttle bus back to the main bus area where various Hotel Shuttles and tour coaches arrive and depart from before making my way to Terminal 1, where all Ryanair-Group flights depart from.

It took me minutes to get through security, but my bag was pulled for some extra screening- I didn't need to wait too long and I was through and off to find the gate for my flight. I had about 65 minutes before my flight was due and they'd started advertising the gate for the flight, so I made my way in that direction.

I waited by Gate 206 for about 20 minutes, I then noticed they had put up signage for a Liverpool flight, so I quickly checked on a near by FIDS Screen and sure enough my flight was starting boarding a short walk away at Gate 210. Luckily I didn't have far to go, if it had been moved across the Terminal I could have been stitched up completely!

Gate 210 is in a bit circular area, BA flights often board in this area, there was about three Ryanair flights boarding or due to board as well as a BA Cityflyer flight to London City, it was getting quite crowded!

The flight was about half loaded from what I could make out, I must have been about 3/4 of the way through the boarding line as I don't tend to rush onto Ryanair flights. But eventually I was out on the tarmac making the brisk walk in the fresh morning air towards my Boeing 737-8AS(WL) for what is now my shortest Ryanair flight so far!

Ryanair FR4784 (Dublin-Newquay)

For today's flight over to Newquay from Dublin was the Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS(WL) EI-EMN, delivered brand new from Boeing in May 2010. It has since been retro-fitted with Split-Scimitar winglets as Ryanair is in the process of upgrading their existing Boeing 737-NG. This Boeing 737 still bares the thicker seats from pre-2016, it seems to be hit and miss on these older aircraft as to whether they've had the partial upgrades or not.

Whilst boarding continued, I took my place for the flight in Seat 14F, fitting given its a 14 year old plane! Once boarding was announced over the tanoy as being completed I was happy to see I had the entire right side of Row 14 (Seats D-F) all to myself- a result!

Given it was coming up to Half Past Six in the morning, we were able to push back and get going for an early departure out of Dublin.

Our take off would see us departing of Runway 28, the same runway I'd arrived on the previous day. We didn't have a long taxi and we were straight to the Runway by the time we'd got there.

Our departure offered an okay view as we departed, however it'll surprise nobody that it didn't last long as we quickly flew into the thick and low cloud cover that morning… after a rapid climb out we popped out into a beautiful morning sky!

We made a few turns toward the South for the short flight down to Newquay Airport and the county of Cornwall.

Despite the short flight, the crew had to perform their buy on board duties to keep Mr O'Leary happy, I opted to help them in this regard by enjoying an Americano Coffee with milk as well as Kinder Bueno chocolate bar, I was going to get a more substantial breakfast in Newquay town centre once I arrived.

It was a short and uneventful flight, but the views as we flew south with the amazing dawn on this spring day really gave a nice gold hue to the wing and engine on the aircraft.

Our route on this flight took us out of Dublin Airport and South across Ireland, flying around the city of Dublin. We crossed over the Irish Sea just over the town of Buckroney. We then flew directly over the Irish Sea until we crossed into England over Padstow, Cornwall. We would descend over Cornwall making a final turn over St Austell before lining up for our arrival into Newquay Airport.

As with Dublin, Newquay was under the cover of some thick cloud cover… The UK and Ireland are certainly known for "April Showers".

We arrived ahead of schedule by a good 10-15 minutes, it was that one time that the crew played the trumpet fanfare- something I don't hear very often on Ryanair flights in 2024!

We made the short taxi over to the Terminal facility, Newquay Airport is a large facility as it used to be an RAF Base for decades, since the mid-2000s its offered its commercial airline facility. There's a lot of storage and aircraft maintenance work that goes on and the Airport recently became the official "Spaceport" for the UK for when commercial space travel decides to take off!

I ended up being one of the last people off the plane and we went through the domestic/CTA arrivals, most of the flights at Newquay Airport are UK domestic and Irish flights, but a few semi-regular holiday flights to Spain and Portugal can be found. Newquay's route network is very similar to nearby Exeter Airport. 

Despite the gnarly weather welcoming us into Cornwall, there were some amazing views across the local countryside. Whilst there are buses to and from Newquay town centre, they are very infrequent you could easily be waiting nearly an hour or in some cases about two hours for a bus in either direction.