Ryanair Santa Flights Routing Question

squonk

My sister, brother in law and my two nieces were lucky enough to get seats on the Santa flights organised by Ryanair and Shannon Airport over the weekend. First off, hats off to Ryanair. Running free flights over two days is very decent, raised a good bit of money for charity and made lots of parents and kiids very happy.

While following my sister's flight on FR24 I noticed it differed from the earlier flights. Those followed a bow-tie type path out over North Clare and up to Clew Bay where they turned left, came around and followed a new track in over East Clare and lined up for Shannon. Generally they cruised at 15000ft @ ~320kts.

In my sister's case the outward leg was the same as earlier but when it came time to turn, they turned right to cme around to a new track. During they turn they also started to shed height going from 15000ft down to 90000ft. I actually thought they were going into Knock as I thought perhaps there was a tech issue but instead they started a new track back down over Galway City and down over East Clare, ready for line up for Shannon, a paralelagram.

Would the difference have been because the crew just fancied a change or because it was getting dark at that stage and they just fancied getting a bit of a view of the lights around the place? I know regular commercail flights are detailed and planned way before the crew strap in. In this kind of case though will the crew fly as they wish or must they file a flight plan beforehand? Rather than saying "Here is going to be our track and speed", can they say "Here is the sector we're going to operate in for this short flight. We don't have an exact track?".

Aerohead

Not sure if they had a planned flight circuit but they passed over Galway City twice on Saturday and yesterday, on Saturday they were low over Galway and you could read Ryanair on the plane so I guess they were giving the passengers a look at Connemara and Galway.

lambayire

I was also luck enough to get tickets for me and my 2 boys.

We had a brilliant time. I cannot say enough about everyone involved.
We were on Santa3 yesterday and were sitting in row 2.

There was a puppet show and a disco on before we got onboard.

Once the plane got up to 15,000 feet, it was seatbelts off and a singalong/disco started.
The Ryanair crew were all dressed up and really nice.
My boys both got the chance to sing over the tannoy.

Santa started from the back of the plane and, sadly, by the time he made his way up to us, it was nearly
time to land. There was a fire engine waiting for us when he disembarked and the chance for the
boys to sound the sirens. An selection boxes for all the kids too.

As we were leaving in the car, we noticed the 747 that had made the emergency landing.
I thought it a bit odd that a 747 was in town.

The drive back to Dublin was a bit long, especially as the weather was awful around Kildare.
But everyone slept very well last night.

I will definitely be trying for tickets, if this every happens again.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone involved!