Saturday, August 23, 2008

Toulouse, France August 2008: Arriving inToulouse-Blagnac from Paris-Charles de Gaulle

23AUG08 Toulouse Blagnac, Toulouse France (TLS)

We touched down safely and made our way off the taxiway. It was a beautiful sight to be at the home of Airbus Industries. There were planes everywhere and I was able to see five A380s. Three in Airbus colors including the one I had seen at the Farnborough Airshow only a month ago. The other two were in Emirates and Qantas colors. It looked like everywhere I looked there was an airplane for Kingfisher Airlines. I could see at least five A330 and one A340.

Avianca also had an A330 there as well as a Royal Jordanian A330. I did not see any A320s, but my guess is that they were at another part of the field. There were large buildings all over the place as well; I was just on cloud Nine.

We made it to the gate finally, pulling up to another A319 on our right. We disembarked and headed to the baggage claim area, passed it and then to the Information counter. We collected some brochures about the city, transport to the city and also about the Airbus facility. I tried to get on WiFi, but they were all paid services. We also checked on the hotels and in order to get the special rate, we had to book online. We tried several times to sign up for 20 minutes for 3 EUR but was unsuccessful each and every time. Eventually, we gave up and decided that we would do this later at the hotel somehow.

We then called the shuttle bus for the hotel and waited 15 minutes for it to arrive. While we waited we saw the bus to the city which cost 4 EUR.