VIEW FROM THE SKIES

Ryanair pilots crank up the intercom to share some of their favourite sights from the cockpit. Mike Peake reports

Air travel became offi cially unremarkable in 1979, when the scruffy boy in your class told you he’d he’d just got back from Florida. Last year, there were about 29 million fl ights – that’s 80,000 planes taking off somewhere in the world every day. But that doesn’t mean you have to be blasé about globetrotting. Later on, if you take a moment to tear your eyes away from your book and lift up your window blind, you’ll be treated to the kind of sights that once made aviator Howard Hughes all weepy. On a Ryanair fl ight, you can see world-famous cityscapes, mountains, lakes, rivers, beaches and even desert – although not necessarily on the same trip and certainly not if you’re just hopping from London to Edinburgh.

And no one knows views from planes like the people who fl y them – the pilots. When they’re not adjusting the controls, pressing buttons or talking through the radio they’re looking out of the window. So we asked fi ve Ryanair captains for their favourite sights for you to look out for.

MONT BLANC
[45º50’1’’N 6º51’54’’E]
Captain: John Nielson, Bremen

“When I’m fl ying to Spain, I normally see Mont Blanc and, on a pretty day, it’s a fantastic sight. We fl y about 5–10 miles from it, but you can see it from 100 miles away in good weather. It’s one of the most famous sights in Europe, so I always like to tell people we’re passing, if I’m not too busy doing other things. We’re fl ying at nearly 1,000km/h, so we do pass it quite quickly.

“From Germany and Stockholm, all our pilots fl y past Mont Blanc going to Girona, Alicante and most of coastal Spain. It’s always out of the left-hand window, both when heading south and going back up, so we get to see both sides. It’s truly beautiful, and a lot of people are just dying to go up and see it.

“It’s great being a pilot, and whenever you take off on a grey and cloudy day and break through the clouds to see the sun, that’s the best bit – it takes some beating. If I could fl y anywhere, I’d love to fl y over Greenland – it must be magical.”

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