Welcome to the 2nd installment of an amazing journey with top *A carriers TG, LH, and SQ in First Class. The 1st installment can be found here.
After a couple of days in Venice, it's time to return. Originally, we were waitlisted on SQ's Rome flight. It would have been the fastest way to reach home in just under 12 hours (18 hours including train ride and wait at airport). But it was a full flight. There were no available seats even in revenue classes. We then had to have a back up plan which was FCO-ADD-DXB-SIN-CGK. It was a crazy routing which I was quite excited with because I have never been to ADD but it's not okay with my time-conscious other half. All along, we were hoping for better options and I monitored availability on various routes every few hours on a daily basis. I was especially eyeing for LH F which I noticed had quite a few availability regularly to PVG and HND.
Very fortunately for us, LH opened their First Class cabin at T-15. When I first saw it, in my heart screamed a big 'YAY!' . The route was FRA-PVG evening flight and it would be on a refurbished 747-400, so all the more it's an even bigger 'YAY'. I had read many TRs on the 744's seat+bed combo and had been dreaming about it since. I wouldn't have been as excited had it been operated by LH's A380 or 748. And I know this would probably be our only and last chance to try this much-talked about F product as it is being phased out.
The next step was how to find a flight back to Singapore from PVG. One of the reasons why the F cabin was wide open at T-15 was that this was around the Chinese long break in early October. All of China was on the way out but there was hardly any inbound traffic as most businesses closed. So here's the difficulty. I could get FRA-PVG but I couldn't get PVG-SIN. So I was actually sitting on the idea of returning via PVG on LH F without booking it, praying it would not be taken away while I kept checking SQ website every few hours for F or even J seats to open. Fortunately for us, the stars were finally aligned one fine day and 2 seats opened for us on the red eye SQ 825 A380 Suites. I wasted no time at all, immediately called SQ and issued the ticket for a rather circuitous LIN-FRA-PVG-SIN-CGK route. How I landed up on the earlier flight with the 777 will be explained later.
Our journey started in Florence, a gorgeous romantic city by the river Arno
There, we had spent a night in a stylish, chic and homey Portrait Firenze by the Ferragamo family.
with a view looking directly into the iconic Ponte Vecchio
But since this is an airline-enthusiast forum, I am going to fast forward to Milan Linate.
We arrived a good 3 hours before the flight. I had placed a huge buffer time because I heard that Italian systems are not punctual. My worries were unfounded because the train and the airport bus departed exactly on time.
Flight: LH275
Route: LIN-FRA
Aircraft: A320
Seat: 2F
Class: Business
Reg: D-AIQC
The airport, I must say, is quite a dump but I like it better than Malpensa for its more convenient location and Malpensa is also just as depressing. The spatial feel reminds me of old Mumbai airport, although Linate is of course much cleaner and less dusty.
It was 3 hours prior to departure and quite a long line had already formed at Row 7. I didn't know that LH is not as frequent here and the check-in counter would not open continuously during the day.
Premium passengers and *Gold have a separate queue which had no queue. I guess business travelers are chronically late comers.
The counter opened 2.5 hours before departure and we checked-in telling them to check us through up to PVG and not SIN. Reason being is that I thought we would stand a better chance to attempt to board an earlier SQ flight rather than enduring a 10 hour transit waiting for the redeye SQ825 as per current ticketed itinerary. According to expertflyer, the earlier SQ flight was almost full but there were still 2 seats available for revenue booking.
After security, we roamed about the airport.
After a couple of days in Venice, it's time to return. Originally, we were waitlisted on SQ's Rome flight. It would have been the fastest way to reach home in just under 12 hours (18 hours including train ride and wait at airport). But it was a full flight. There were no available seats even in revenue classes. We then had to have a back up plan which was FCO-ADD-DXB-SIN-CGK. It was a crazy routing which I was quite excited with because I have never been to ADD but it's not okay with my time-conscious other half. All along, we were hoping for better options and I monitored availability on various routes every few hours on a daily basis. I was especially eyeing for LH F which I noticed had quite a few availability regularly to PVG and HND.
Very fortunately for us, LH opened their First Class cabin at T-15. When I first saw it, in my heart screamed a big 'YAY!' . The route was FRA-PVG evening flight and it would be on a refurbished 747-400, so all the more it's an even bigger 'YAY'. I had read many TRs on the 744's seat+bed combo and had been dreaming about it since. I wouldn't have been as excited had it been operated by LH's A380 or 748. And I know this would probably be our only and last chance to try this much-talked about F product as it is being phased out.
The next step was how to find a flight back to Singapore from PVG. One of the reasons why the F cabin was wide open at T-15 was that this was around the Chinese long break in early October. All of China was on the way out but there was hardly any inbound traffic as most businesses closed. So here's the difficulty. I could get FRA-PVG but I couldn't get PVG-SIN. So I was actually sitting on the idea of returning via PVG on LH F without booking it, praying it would not be taken away while I kept checking SQ website every few hours for F or even J seats to open. Fortunately for us, the stars were finally aligned one fine day and 2 seats opened for us on the red eye SQ 825 A380 Suites. I wasted no time at all, immediately called SQ and issued the ticket for a rather circuitous LIN-FRA-PVG-SIN-CGK route. How I landed up on the earlier flight with the 777 will be explained later.
Our journey started in Florence, a gorgeous romantic city by the river Arno
There, we had spent a night in a stylish, chic and homey Portrait Firenze by the Ferragamo family.
with a view looking directly into the iconic Ponte Vecchio
But since this is an airline-enthusiast forum, I am going to fast forward to Milan Linate.
We arrived a good 3 hours before the flight. I had placed a huge buffer time because I heard that Italian systems are not punctual. My worries were unfounded because the train and the airport bus departed exactly on time.
Flight: LH275
Route: LIN-FRA
Aircraft: A320
Seat: 2F
Class: Business
Reg: D-AIQC
The airport, I must say, is quite a dump but I like it better than Malpensa for its more convenient location and Malpensa is also just as depressing. The spatial feel reminds me of old Mumbai airport, although Linate is of course much cleaner and less dusty.
It was 3 hours prior to departure and quite a long line had already formed at Row 7. I didn't know that LH is not as frequent here and the check-in counter would not open continuously during the day.
Premium passengers and *Gold have a separate queue which had no queue. I guess business travelers are chronically late comers.
The counter opened 2.5 hours before departure and we checked-in telling them to check us through up to PVG and not SIN. Reason being is that I thought we would stand a better chance to attempt to board an earlier SQ flight rather than enduring a 10 hour transit waiting for the redeye SQ825 as per current ticketed itinerary. According to expertflyer, the earlier SQ flight was almost full but there were still 2 seats available for revenue booking.
After security, we roamed about the airport.
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