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Please note that unlike my previous reports, this report tends to be more concentrated on photographic than text. This is the first time that I have taken the initiative to take pictures onboard the flight to share with everyone. Mind you I am not the best photographer out there and I sincerely apologize for the blur images that transpired as a result of that.
Visits to London for corporate trips have become a regular exercise routine for me in particular this year. A trend that is to resume with yet another visit in October of this month. Routinely for me, a trip to the British capital does not require bloody hours of flying to reach this particular destination. 10 hours from NA or 13-15 hours from Asia would fit just fine in duration being bearable. However as so often we would encounter in our life time, the circumstances are not always the way we had hoped them to be and today was no exception for me.
Having recently relocated down under to New Zealand last month, my expedition to LON this time around would involve a flying time duration of 24 + hours for journeys commencing from down under Kiwi Land. Yep make no mistake as one would have to be locked up inside a flying machine for a total surpassing the total number of hours calculated for a full day when our geography describes Auckland and London to be nearly halfway around the world from each other. Sounds like an unbearable task ahead for anyone who plans to take this type of a marathon. However there is always relief to air traveling where poor food, leg room crampness, etc can be avoided or kept to a minimum. Yes the beauty & grace of being in first class can really turn the tide the opposite direction. With what seemed like an unbearable & never ending journey, one would be amazed how those two adjectives does not fit the description if one can put themselves inside a premium cabin. Yep I have taken this logic for quite a while in all my trips within the last two years and I’ll be applying this logic for the sake of my comfort journey by once again relying upon the efficiency and splendor of SIA’s first class product to transport me halfway around the world.
On a crisp & cool late morning condition on this first full week of October, I managed to get myself to AKL airport smoothly.
Passenger volume once I stepped inside the ground level terminal facility was moderately quiet.
Having very little interest in exploring AIAL’s facility, I managed my way straight towards the SIA check-in counter located near the very edge of the building near entrance #1.
For today, SQ has been assigned counters 79-88. First was assigned counter 79, Raffles 80-81, and Economy 83-87. Counter 82 was designated as the service centre desk while 88 was opened for ticketing purposes.
Apparently the counters had just opened when I arrived but nonetheless a sizable queue had already formed for Y. Raffles and First on the other hand were fairly empty. In AKL, SQ does not have their own staff handling the ground operations and thus contracts everything to Menzies, a local company (similar to Jardine in HKG) to operate the activities. With no one occupying the F desk as I approached to the front, a Menzies lady staffing the counter greeted me as I submitted my passport, E-Ticket receipt, and FF cards. At the moment of processing my record, I decided to speed things up by gently placed my one checked luggage into the scales and informed that I would have only one bags to check. Processing my documents indeed took very little time and my boarding passes for both AKL-SIN & SIN LHR sectors had been printed out along with the luggage tags which she applied towards my bags and managed to wrap first class & star alliance priority tags around as well.
Visits to London for corporate trips have become a regular exercise routine for me in particular this year. A trend that is to resume with yet another visit in October of this month. Routinely for me, a trip to the British capital does not require bloody hours of flying to reach this particular destination. 10 hours from NA or 13-15 hours from Asia would fit just fine in duration being bearable. However as so often we would encounter in our life time, the circumstances are not always the way we had hoped them to be and today was no exception for me.
Having recently relocated down under to New Zealand last month, my expedition to LON this time around would involve a flying time duration of 24 + hours for journeys commencing from down under Kiwi Land. Yep make no mistake as one would have to be locked up inside a flying machine for a total surpassing the total number of hours calculated for a full day when our geography describes Auckland and London to be nearly halfway around the world from each other. Sounds like an unbearable task ahead for anyone who plans to take this type of a marathon. However there is always relief to air traveling where poor food, leg room crampness, etc can be avoided or kept to a minimum. Yes the beauty & grace of being in first class can really turn the tide the opposite direction. With what seemed like an unbearable & never ending journey, one would be amazed how those two adjectives does not fit the description if one can put themselves inside a premium cabin. Yep I have taken this logic for quite a while in all my trips within the last two years and I’ll be applying this logic for the sake of my comfort journey by once again relying upon the efficiency and splendor of SIA’s first class product to transport me halfway around the world.
On a crisp & cool late morning condition on this first full week of October, I managed to get myself to AKL airport smoothly.
Passenger volume once I stepped inside the ground level terminal facility was moderately quiet.
Having very little interest in exploring AIAL’s facility, I managed my way straight towards the SIA check-in counter located near the very edge of the building near entrance #1.
For today, SQ has been assigned counters 79-88. First was assigned counter 79, Raffles 80-81, and Economy 83-87. Counter 82 was designated as the service centre desk while 88 was opened for ticketing purposes.
Apparently the counters had just opened when I arrived but nonetheless a sizable queue had already formed for Y. Raffles and First on the other hand were fairly empty. In AKL, SQ does not have their own staff handling the ground operations and thus contracts everything to Menzies, a local company (similar to Jardine in HKG) to operate the activities. With no one occupying the F desk as I approached to the front, a Menzies lady staffing the counter greeted me as I submitted my passport, E-Ticket receipt, and FF cards. At the moment of processing my record, I decided to speed things up by gently placed my one checked luggage into the scales and informed that I would have only one bags to check. Processing my documents indeed took very little time and my boarding passes for both AKL-SIN & SIN LHR sectors had been printed out along with the luggage tags which she applied towards my bags and managed to wrap first class & star alliance priority tags around as well.
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