BA15/16 SIN-SYD-SIN: British Airways 787-9 to Sydney, and Uluru from the Air

[yflyer]

My flight home on BA16 was on Boeing 787-9 registration G-ZBKF, a 9 year old aircraft just a few months older than G-ZBKI, the plane that operated BA15 on my SIN-SYD sector, with an identical cabin product.

As I boarded, I took a closer look at the Premium Economy seats, which looked quite comfortable.



I think I would prefer this 787's PEY cabin, with 2-3-2 seating, to SQ's A359 PEY, which was 2-4-2.

[yflyer]

On today's flight, my seat would be in the rear of the Y cabin, laid out 3-3-3.



Only 2 seats per row for the window-side seats in the last row of this plane -- great if you were travelling as a couple.



I was in an aisle seat in the middle bank of the 2nd-last row. I've found that over the years, this seat gives me the best odds of having an empty seat next to me on a fairly full flight. Apparently no-one want so be in the middle seat of the 2nd last row of the plane, so in my experience this seat is, more often than not, the very last empty seat onboard any given flight.



Recline was decent.



Slight obstruction with the IFE box (which looked a little ugly), but in practice, there was ample room for my feet.



The armrests infuriatingly only went 3/4 the way up. If I had 3 seats to myself, it would just be possible to lie flat, but why didn't they just design the armrests to fold up flush with the seat backs. In any case, there was a pax on the other aisle seat so it didn't matter that much on this flight.



The seat-back IFE. There was a USB port on the seat back as well, along with A/C power under the seat.

[yflyer]

Just under 8 hours flight time to Sydney today.



Ambience in the cabin was very good, despite it being a fairly full flight.



Take-off to the south-east...

[yflyer]

After take-off I browsed the IFE. There were several very interesting programmes about the history of BA, and the Concorde...



How amazing it must have been to fly onboard one of these supersonic wonders...



The cabin was pretty small, but what a pampering guests onboard received!

[yflyer]

Cabin service began wih drink service. What I liked about BA's drink service was that not only did you get a pre-dinner drink, but to save time, you were also asked what you wanted to drink with your meal, and you were served that drink right away as well...



After a full beverage service, it was time for dinner.



Once again, 2 choices of main.



I picked the pasta bolognaise...



This was pretty satisfying.



A round of coffee and tea followed. This was served in paper cups.

[yflyer]

I switched my IFE to the inflight map and tried to see where we were over Australia, relative to Uluru.

Whenever I flew from Sydney or Melbourne back to Singapore, I always took a close look at the inflight map to see what the routing was over Australia.

Quite regularly, the routing would take the aircraft almost directly over Uluru.

Many years ago, on a Qantas flight, the pilot announced over the PA that we were flying over Ayers Rock. Half asleep, I glanced out the window and saw an amazing circular red land mass, which stood out clearly against the brown/orange ground around it. We passed over it quickly, and as I was half asleep, I was never 100% sure if I had actually seen what I saw, or if it was a figment of my imagination.

Since that time, I had flown many trips from SYD or MEL to SIN, and had never been able to spot Uluru, let alone take a picture of it.

Many things had to go right: the aircraft had to file the right flight plan that passed over Uluru (obviously dependent on winds and weather conditions etc). Some flights flew close to Uluru, others didn't.

The sky had to be clear. On at least one previous flight, we might have flown fairly close to Uluru, but there was total cloud cover and nothing was visible.

And of course you had to be looking out windows on the correct side of the plane.

On today's flight, I was quite hopeful. After we took off from Sydney, the skies looked to be very clear, and the flight path of the plane looked to be heading straight towards Uluru.



I was seated in an aisle seat in the rear of the plane. Not a window seat, but in this case, an aisle seat would work in my favour. At the right time, I could just step out of my seat and head to either the left or right emergency door and take pics out that door.

Way before we reached Uluru, I had a good feeling about the day's flight. The sky was cooperating -- not a cloud in sight, and visibility was excellent right out into the distance, and the plane seemed to be heading right for it.



Thank goodness for the 3D airshow map, which was pretty much updated in real time. I zoomed progressively into the map, watching the aircraft move closer and closer towards Uluru, and at some point I realized that we were getting awfully close. I jumped out of my seat and headed to the left rear door's narrow window, and peered out.

At first nothing.

Where was it? I scanned the horizon, looking up and down...

[yflyer]

The ground below moved quickly past. Surely we were over it by now...I scanned the view in all directions.

There! At 7 o'clock, far below...



All I had with me was my iPhone, but it managed to take fairly decent pictures.

I had almost missed it. We were almost directly above it, at 37,500 feet, and passed it just to the north east, so that it was just visible out the left side windows.



What an incredible sight. It looked very much like that half-imagined picture in my head from all those years back, so maybe I had seen it back then as well, on that Qantas flight more than a decade ago.

There was another pax standing behind me. I had not noticed him until now.

"Did you see it?" he asked.

"Yes I did! Over there!" I pointed to the window, and he peered out.

Sadly we had already passed it by and it was no longer visible.

But he had visited Uluru on the ground, and had seen it up close.

"You should see it from ground level. It has presence!", he said.



"There are the other rock formations up ahead" he continued, pointing to another rock formation up ahead.


I later learned that those were The Olgas, or Kata Tjuta, another unique rock formation about 40km away from Uluru.

I returned to my seat a happy man. A short while later, I headed to the galley to ask for a G&T.

Several cabin crew members were there. I told them what I had seen.

One of the cabin crew was also looking out the window trying to spot Uluru, but on the right side, and didn't see anything.

He had asked the pilot which side of the plane Uluru was on, but somehow he ended up looking on the right side instead.

"Did you take pictures?" he asked me.

"Yes I did!"

I showed him the pictures, and airdropped one of them to his iPhone.


"You fly this route often, so you will have many chances to see it!", I told him, "I have been trying to take a picture of Uluru from the air for the last 15 years!"


When I shared these pics on social media with my friends, several said that I should visit Uluru and the area on ground -- there was a lot to see and do in that area. What a great idea -- it is something I have added to my bucket list.

[yflyer]

I headed back to my seat, G&T in hand, and sipped it as I reflected on what I had just seen out the window.



It eventually grew dark outside. Cabin lights were dimmed.

[yflyer]

90 minutes prior to arrival, a hot snack was served...



Not bad...



By then we were over the Java Sea...



The rest of the flight passed quickly...



We landed on time, just after 9pm local Singapore time.

My journey ended in Singapore, but many pax onboard would be continuing to London Heathrow after a brief transit stop at Changi.

I had a great flight. The Y cabin product was fine, and the catering and cabin service were pretty good too. It certainly helped that I had an empty seat next to me, and seeing Uluru from the air made this flight a very special one for me.

[yflyer]

Final reflections...

I was very happy with my flights on BA. They have a good hard product, and I was very happy with their cabin service as well. My flights were both on time, and the lounge in SIN was excellent.

On this trip I visited three wonderful cities, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. All three were different in their own unique ways, and I had a great time in all 3. The weather in Brisbane was great while I was there, and the sheer variety of food and drink available in Melbourne and Sydney was quite mindboggling.

Finally, It was great to finally sight Uluru from the air. I hope an opportunity will arise in future for me to see it up close, on the ground.

Thanks for reading!

[SQ218]

Nice TR as usual yflyer and great snaps of Uluru. I've yet to get a chance to spot it on flights.

Didn't even know that Roe restaurant exist in Glen Waverley haha

[RedEyeflight]

Enjoyed your quick report yflyer! BA's lounge ex-SIN and Y product look solid for the competition on the market down under. Those IFE screens could use a bit of a refresh though.

[yflyer]

Nice TR as usual yflyer and great snaps of Uluru. I've yet to get a chance to spot it on flights.

Didn't even know that Roe restaurant exist in Glen Waverley haha

Thank you for reading, SQ218! It's actually quite rare to spot Uluru from cruising altitude. It took me 15 years! :-)

If you like sea urchin, then you should definitely try The Roe!

[yflyer]

Enjoyed your quick report yflyer! BA's lounge ex-SIN and Y product look solid for the competition on the market down under. Those IFE screens could use a bit of a refresh though.

Hi RedEyeflight! Thank you for reading!

Yes, the BA Lounge in SIN is pretty impressive, and the Oneworld/QF Lounge in SYD is also pretty good. In general, with only a few exceptions, I've found Oneworld Lounges (CX/QF/JL/BA) to be more impressive than Star Alliance (SQ/UA/NH/TG) lounges.

I agree that the BA Y product is actually pretty competitive these days, and ex-SIN fares are good too. (And in the unlikely event Heathrow closes again, you get to divert to LGW rather than a totally diferent country, or u-turn back home to SIN...).

Agree the IFE screens aren't the best. Hard to beat Krisworld for IFE!

[9V-SIA]

Another great TR

Love the idea of eating more sea urchin to save the environment!

BA premium economy looks very attractive with 2-3-2

I don’t like 2-4-2 premium configuration