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(health warning. lots of words and very few pictures)
Hello there!
As the title suggests, I’ll be flying halfway round the world and back over the next 28 days or so. As such, I thought I should chip in with my first ever trip report here.
22nd July 2008
The day started out innocently enough, me lugging my luggage from my place in Wapping to Tower Hill tube, and taking the District Line on to Hammersmith for the Piccadilly Line.
I usually advise most people flying out of T3 to arrive about 2.5 hours before your flight was due to take off, but perhaps I need to listen to myself a little more often. My flight was at 11.55am, and at 9am I was still unhurriedly strolling to the tube station.
In a sense, I think my lack of urgency is due to the (long overdue) acceptance that you can’t avoid queuing in rows at Heathrow – the earlier you arrive, the longer you have to stand upright. But no matter, I managed to join the check-in queue at about 10.30am.
Checking-in
Having made a conscious decision not to check-in online, I was interested to see how fast the standard queue moved relative to the internet check in queue. For the A380, I did note that they opened 3 internet check-in counters and two economy class check-in counters. With only one of the three internet check-in counters manned, the standard queue moved much faster.
It’s the same story as my last LHR-SIN run in March- the internet check-in counter is not necessarily the fastest.
So there I was, standing there, lost in my iPod, when one of the Heathrow queue managers plucked me out of the queue and asked me to check in at the Suites counter. It’s a cheap thrill, but it felt both strange and exhilarating standing on a red carpet in front of an extremely courteous check-in agent, who went the extra mile to tag my luggage with First Class priority tags (to ensure it got to the plane), and a verbal query whether I was confident of getting onto the flight in time.
I don’t mean to say that other classes of passengers are treated as lesser human beings, but it did feel good that in an airport that is usually cold and unwelcoming, someone actually did care whether you would make it to the gate.
The check-in process was extremely fast, and it was a with a hollow feeling – knowing that it would be highly unlikely that I’ll ever get to stand on that red carpet to check-in again, that I turned away from the counter and proceeded upstairs to clear security and immigration.
Security and immigration
This is going to sound surprising for LHR. I cleared security and immigration at Heathrow in a grand total of 5 minutes. I think the trick is to be very aware of one’s surroundings, and not be afraid to go under barriers to the far end of the hall to use the other X-ray machines.
There were four counters open at the far end of the hall with no visible queue, yet so many of the passengers joining the queue from the check-in desks in and around Zones D and beyond automatically follow the crowd. It probably is down to poor traffic flow by the airport staff, but if one is unfamiliar with the airport, and in a rush, it can be massively delaying.
I cleared x-ray and moved on to the passport check. Cleared that in a jiffy, and proceeded to join the queue at the shoe x-ray. Surprisingly, was waved through that as well so some more additional time saved.
Boarding and the flight
Airbus A380-841, 9V-SKC
Upper Deck, seat 80G, Emergency Exit row
Departing from Gate 7
It was a nice surprise that for a change, I didn’t have to walk 20 minutes to get to an SQ boarding gate. It looked like a short 5 minute walk. Taking a slow stroll, I passed by the SAS lounge, and later the SKL en route to the boarding gate. Another time perhaps. Oh, and passed by the Emirates Lounge too, now that is one good looking lounge.
The gate allocated to my flight was one of LHR’s new A380 ready gates. Just from the picture itself, you can see how much larger it is compared to the cramped quarters at other LHR gates.
At one corner of the gate there was also a small bar area where you could munch on food or use your laptop (power points available).
As boarding for the upper deck had already commenced when I reached the Gate, I hurriedly took a few shots of the plane and the gate, and proceeded to board.
The A380
I have been exclusively flying the SQ 747-400 for all my long-haul flights for the past five years. Apart from the 773 I flew to HKG in March, this would be the first time in 8 years that I’m trying a totally new plane.
Mentally, I was building up expectations of what flying the A380 would be like – especially since I have been pretty vocal about how dated the SQ 747s looked. But as I boarded, and walked through the plane to my seat, I was seriously underwhelmed. But it’s okay, it probably is just down to me building too many sandcastles in the sky.
As I approached my seat, I realised the first problem - there wasn’t an overhead compartment. I think I’ve mentioned before that I usually travel with my saxophone, and while the case is on the slightly longish side, a pleasant and helpful stewardess had to open quite a number of compartments to find one with sufficient space to fit it.
So yep, if you’re travelling on the upper deck of an A380 – don’t count on there being loads of overhead cabin storage space. There isn’t.
Anyway the stewardess seemed pretty interested that I played the saxophone – and commented that people usually bring violins and guitars. We chatted for a while, which was nice – stark contrast to the monotone “welcome sir, welcome madams” echoing around the cabins. She later specially brought me copies of the local papers as she thought I missed home and would like to read the local papers, which was a nice touch.
The seat I chose was probably one of the best in the upper deck Y cabin. The legspace is unbelievable.
The minus point though is that people do try to cross aisles and as such always do tip toes around your legs. I got stepped on twice by a young kid who spent half the flight running around, and I wasn’t wearing shoes.
Another point to note is that if you have the choice between 80D and 80G, i’d go for 80D, because there seems to be much less human traffic on the port side of the aircraft. This is probably due to the fact the rear stairwell opens up onto the starboard aisle, which 80G flanks.
New KrisWorld
The less said about it the better I guess. The larger screens are great, but the choice of programmes were pathetic imho. I ended up watching a Top Gear race across London, which I have watched 3 times prior, and that was probably the only show that interested me. OK, The Bank Job wasn’t too bad either.
I’ll spend about 30 hours on board SQ Metal in August, I hope next month’s offerings are better.
The meals
I had a choice of Thai Chicken curry or Sweet and Sour fish for lunch. Had originally planned to take the beef, but it ran out by the time meal service reached me. Had the chicken curry instead, and it was really quite good. They gave a generous portion of chicken, although the serving of rice was pretty measly.
In between lunch and breakfast (due to the time difference, no dinner was served), the crew laid out a tray of crisps, chocolate bars and fruits in the galley to satiate hungry passengers. I don’t think it’s anything new though – previously the crew would walk around offering passengers drinks, now the passengers have to locate the galley and help themselves.
Breakfast though was an unqualified disaster. I chose the fried rice option, and the rice was both hard and tasteless. The char siew was rubbery and tasteless. It was probably the worst meal I’ve ever had on an airline, and I’ve had a few. I shovelled a few spoonfuls into my mouth as I was absolutely starving then, and left the rest.
To the crew’s credit though, the leading stewardess who collected my tray noticed that I didn’t touch much of the fried rice and asked if the rice wasn’t good. I pretty honestly told her that it was abysmal and she seemed genuinely apologetic and offered to cook me instant noodles.
The offer was tempting, but as we were going through quite bad turbulence then, I thought that most of the noodles would end up on the floor instead of my stomach. Or worse, end up on the floor via my stomach.
Hello there!
As the title suggests, I’ll be flying halfway round the world and back over the next 28 days or so. As such, I thought I should chip in with my first ever trip report here.
22nd July 2008
The day started out innocently enough, me lugging my luggage from my place in Wapping to Tower Hill tube, and taking the District Line on to Hammersmith for the Piccadilly Line.
I usually advise most people flying out of T3 to arrive about 2.5 hours before your flight was due to take off, but perhaps I need to listen to myself a little more often. My flight was at 11.55am, and at 9am I was still unhurriedly strolling to the tube station.
In a sense, I think my lack of urgency is due to the (long overdue) acceptance that you can’t avoid queuing in rows at Heathrow – the earlier you arrive, the longer you have to stand upright. But no matter, I managed to join the check-in queue at about 10.30am.
Checking-in
Having made a conscious decision not to check-in online, I was interested to see how fast the standard queue moved relative to the internet check in queue. For the A380, I did note that they opened 3 internet check-in counters and two economy class check-in counters. With only one of the three internet check-in counters manned, the standard queue moved much faster.
It’s the same story as my last LHR-SIN run in March- the internet check-in counter is not necessarily the fastest.
So there I was, standing there, lost in my iPod, when one of the Heathrow queue managers plucked me out of the queue and asked me to check in at the Suites counter. It’s a cheap thrill, but it felt both strange and exhilarating standing on a red carpet in front of an extremely courteous check-in agent, who went the extra mile to tag my luggage with First Class priority tags (to ensure it got to the plane), and a verbal query whether I was confident of getting onto the flight in time.
I don’t mean to say that other classes of passengers are treated as lesser human beings, but it did feel good that in an airport that is usually cold and unwelcoming, someone actually did care whether you would make it to the gate.
The check-in process was extremely fast, and it was a with a hollow feeling – knowing that it would be highly unlikely that I’ll ever get to stand on that red carpet to check-in again, that I turned away from the counter and proceeded upstairs to clear security and immigration.
Security and immigration
This is going to sound surprising for LHR. I cleared security and immigration at Heathrow in a grand total of 5 minutes. I think the trick is to be very aware of one’s surroundings, and not be afraid to go under barriers to the far end of the hall to use the other X-ray machines.
There were four counters open at the far end of the hall with no visible queue, yet so many of the passengers joining the queue from the check-in desks in and around Zones D and beyond automatically follow the crowd. It probably is down to poor traffic flow by the airport staff, but if one is unfamiliar with the airport, and in a rush, it can be massively delaying.
I cleared x-ray and moved on to the passport check. Cleared that in a jiffy, and proceeded to join the queue at the shoe x-ray. Surprisingly, was waved through that as well so some more additional time saved.
Boarding and the flight
Airbus A380-841, 9V-SKC
Upper Deck, seat 80G, Emergency Exit row
Departing from Gate 7
It was a nice surprise that for a change, I didn’t have to walk 20 minutes to get to an SQ boarding gate. It looked like a short 5 minute walk. Taking a slow stroll, I passed by the SAS lounge, and later the SKL en route to the boarding gate. Another time perhaps. Oh, and passed by the Emirates Lounge too, now that is one good looking lounge.
The gate allocated to my flight was one of LHR’s new A380 ready gates. Just from the picture itself, you can see how much larger it is compared to the cramped quarters at other LHR gates.
At one corner of the gate there was also a small bar area where you could munch on food or use your laptop (power points available).
As boarding for the upper deck had already commenced when I reached the Gate, I hurriedly took a few shots of the plane and the gate, and proceeded to board.
The A380
I have been exclusively flying the SQ 747-400 for all my long-haul flights for the past five years. Apart from the 773 I flew to HKG in March, this would be the first time in 8 years that I’m trying a totally new plane.
Mentally, I was building up expectations of what flying the A380 would be like – especially since I have been pretty vocal about how dated the SQ 747s looked. But as I boarded, and walked through the plane to my seat, I was seriously underwhelmed. But it’s okay, it probably is just down to me building too many sandcastles in the sky.
As I approached my seat, I realised the first problem - there wasn’t an overhead compartment. I think I’ve mentioned before that I usually travel with my saxophone, and while the case is on the slightly longish side, a pleasant and helpful stewardess had to open quite a number of compartments to find one with sufficient space to fit it.
So yep, if you’re travelling on the upper deck of an A380 – don’t count on there being loads of overhead cabin storage space. There isn’t.
Anyway the stewardess seemed pretty interested that I played the saxophone – and commented that people usually bring violins and guitars. We chatted for a while, which was nice – stark contrast to the monotone “welcome sir, welcome madams” echoing around the cabins. She later specially brought me copies of the local papers as she thought I missed home and would like to read the local papers, which was a nice touch.
The seat I chose was probably one of the best in the upper deck Y cabin. The legspace is unbelievable.
The minus point though is that people do try to cross aisles and as such always do tip toes around your legs. I got stepped on twice by a young kid who spent half the flight running around, and I wasn’t wearing shoes.
Another point to note is that if you have the choice between 80D and 80G, i’d go for 80D, because there seems to be much less human traffic on the port side of the aircraft. This is probably due to the fact the rear stairwell opens up onto the starboard aisle, which 80G flanks.
New KrisWorld
The less said about it the better I guess. The larger screens are great, but the choice of programmes were pathetic imho. I ended up watching a Top Gear race across London, which I have watched 3 times prior, and that was probably the only show that interested me. OK, The Bank Job wasn’t too bad either.
I’ll spend about 30 hours on board SQ Metal in August, I hope next month’s offerings are better.
The meals
I had a choice of Thai Chicken curry or Sweet and Sour fish for lunch. Had originally planned to take the beef, but it ran out by the time meal service reached me. Had the chicken curry instead, and it was really quite good. They gave a generous portion of chicken, although the serving of rice was pretty measly.
In between lunch and breakfast (due to the time difference, no dinner was served), the crew laid out a tray of crisps, chocolate bars and fruits in the galley to satiate hungry passengers. I don’t think it’s anything new though – previously the crew would walk around offering passengers drinks, now the passengers have to locate the galley and help themselves.
Breakfast though was an unqualified disaster. I chose the fried rice option, and the rice was both hard and tasteless. The char siew was rubbery and tasteless. It was probably the worst meal I’ve ever had on an airline, and I’ve had a few. I shovelled a few spoonfuls into my mouth as I was absolutely starving then, and left the rest.
To the crew’s credit though, the leading stewardess who collected my tray noticed that I didn’t touch much of the fried rice and asked if the rice wasn’t good. I pretty honestly told her that it was abysmal and she seemed genuinely apologetic and offered to cook me instant noodles.
The offer was tempting, but as we were going through quite bad turbulence then, I thought that most of the noodles would end up on the floor instead of my stomach. Or worse, end up on the floor via my stomach.
At least you had great legroom 
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