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5 airports, 4 planes. 24 hours! (LHR-CDG-FRA-SIN-KUL)

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  • 5 airports, 4 planes. 24 hours! (LHR-CDG-FRA-SIN-KUL)

    5 airports, 4 planes. 24 hours

    It's end of the year! And rightly so I have planned to get home for Christmas as I wanna spend Christmas and New Year with my loved ones and friends. It all begin with a simple MSN beep from Chris - who is another frequent flyer forum freak at Flyertalk.com. Flyertalk is a forum of many frequent flyer enthusiasts, who gather and share their thoughts of mileage run, and anything about airliners. It has proved to be a great site. So one fine day back in June this year, there was a mistake fare on the Lufthansa website, and Flyertalk was obviously buzzing with posts regarding this mistake. Some Paris CDG - Singapore SIN were going for £269 all in. Apparently it was supposed to be £2690 but the zero was missing, and apparently these are very common mistakes (gasp!). It was a deal that I couldn't resist because simply it's fully refundable and secondly, it acrues full mileage, plus qualifying miles! I decided to grab this as this would be great for my *A Gold qualifications (a whole whopping 13k miles!). In a jiffy, I was booked on Lufthansa flight from CDG-SIN for Christmas period. The fare was corrected the next working day.

    First leg: LHR-CDG
    Flight Operated by: BMI Regional
    Aircraft Type: Embraer RJ145
    Flight time: 55 minutes
    Fare: £99
    Date: 23 Dec 2006 Dep: 1050 Arr 1305

    The fog situation was a prime concern few days before my scheduled flight. As you know, flights were delayed greatly due to low visibility at the LHR airport. The fact that it operates on only 2 runway adds more complications. For days I have prayed for a good sunny day on that Saturday and my prayers were answered when fog were lifted. I also considered myself very lucky, coz had I booked on BA for my flight to CDG, it would've been cancelled. BA was actually offering cheaper rate, but I chose BMI because they are part of *A. Thank God for BMI for still running their service. I was quite excited to find out that I was going to fly on an Embraer R145. It looks like your own personal jet, but of course it doesn't feel like one coz it's all cramped up inside. I just wanted to experience flying on this jet as it's the smallest one so far. The liftup was really quick and in no time we were in the air. Nothing much to comment about the service, as it's a straight forward short-haul hop. Loved the aircraft though!







    Paris CDG - more like DOG
    We arrived Paris CDG 5 minutes before scheduled arrival time. Upon arrival, I was the last one to leave. I just wanted to take pictures of the cabin because I really did fall in love with it. And the FA was more than glad to post for me. Teehee.

    I haven't been to many airports, but CDG can be considered as one of the worst airport I have been to so far. Upon disembarkment, we were lead into this retro-looking tunnel to the main satelite terminal. At first glance it looks quite cool, because of the unfinished look, but after a while it gets a bit boring. Enter the terminal, and you instantly feel rather depressing. The low lights at the terminals just makes me felt tired! And then the confusion starts. Signs were not clearly stated, and there were no transit counters or anything. I know Changi has it so I thought it's a common thing, but I guess I was wrong. So I decided to pass through immigration. And then I was met with this quite a cool-looking escalator. I followed the exit sign and finally managed to exit. It's funny how they decided to divert the exit into a small lane, kinda like heading to the toilet! So I didn't know if I was heading the right direction.

    Since I had like 6 full hours to burn, I started looking for activities to burn time. There weren't many choices really, so I decided to go for a proper sit down restaurant. After spending a good hour gobbling down food, I thought of going shopping. Urgh...I just don't believe how limited the selection of shops. Actually there werent' ANY retail shops that interests me slightly. God, 4 hours and nothing to do. I then started powering up my laptop, and hope that there is wireless network. There were WIFI logo eveywhere so I thought, surely there is. And yes there were, but would require some payment, which I was more than willing to pay. Then to my horror, it didnt let me sign up. Somehow I must enter a France address as my billing address. WTF! At that time, I was really pissed. CDG is officially DOG. By that time, my mood has gone really bad, and was tired out by then. I would rather spend 20 hours in Changi than 2 hours here!

    Fast forward boarding time. I don't understand what sort of boarding system they have. All 3-4 boarding gates were grouped together. And they only check your boarding pass only when you board, as opposed to other usual airports procedure where they check your boarding passes upon entering the boarding gates. I just don't get it. From that onwards, I wasn't in the mood to take any pics any more. I just wanted it to be OVER.

    Next-up: Fabulous FRANKFURT

  • #2
    Good work, Edwin!

    Originally posted by quik!
    Flyertalk is a forum of many frequent flyer enthusiasts, who gather and share their thoughts of mileage run, and anything about airliners. It has proved to be a great site.
    I believe you wrote this trippie for more than 1 forum?
    All opinions shared are my own, and are not necessarily those of my employer or any other organisation of which I'm affiliated to.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by KeithMEL View Post
      Good work, Edwin!



      I believe you wrote this trippie for more than 1 forum?

      Heh, of course, I knew I should've cut that bit out when I decided to post in this forum

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      • #4
        Great report !

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        • #5
          Great report! Can't wait for the rest.

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          • #6
            Apologies for the missing parts of my previous trip report! I just haven’t got the time to pen down my thoughts on the previous trip. So let me just summarise the whole trip from FRA-SIN-KUL . Frankfurt Airport was amazing, just coming out of the dingy CDG, it’s not hard to feel the difference. When entered the common check-in area before security, it was refreshing to see bright, high ceilings with modern interior look and feel. However, it all ended when I boarded my LH flight.

            First of all, a common complaint on LH’s Economy seats is the fact that no PTV provided. I only realised this after coming back and checked on forums. I got a shock when I didn’t see the PTV. Well, that wasn’t that bad, what was worse were that seats. They were really really cramped. My knees were touching the back seat in front of me, and I’m just an average height of an Asian guy. Imagine what the mat sallehs had to endure! Most of them were sitting sideways. Urgh…I didn’t enjoy it a bit, first it was cramped, and then no PTV, I felt I was really trapped there.

            And no Flynet since connexion has rolled off! What made the experience THE worst was my FAs being not interested with her work at all. The one that served my row was doing her job as though there is a gun pointing at her. However, I must say, my return flight’s FA did a much better job! OK enough about that, let’s move on to something better – my first Business Class experience with SIA!


            One last shot of the fabulous jet! I absolutely love this


            Nice tunnel towards the main sattelite terminal, retro cool at first, boring after a while!






            Lunch at Hippo, the ONLY decent place to eat in the terminal!


            Boarding area in FRA


            FRA terminal - going back to CDG

            Comment


            • #7
              More pics: -



              Guess who are in Paris, the new and the old!





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              • #8
                Bored in CDG, so I went happy snapping








                Places i wanna head to


                Instead have to go here


                Dash 8!

                Sorry no in-flight pics - wasn't in the mood, just wanted it all to be over

                Comment


                • #9
                  Good so far. Photo Galore please like you asked mine to be . Make sure you do lots of pictures for FRA-SIN

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                  • #10
                    Sorry fumi, that's all I have! Stay tuned for my First, First/Business class experience with SQ! Coming soon to a thread near you!

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                    • #11
                      Nice pics, quik! !
                      All opinions shared are my own, and are not necessarily those of my employer or any other organisation of which I'm affiliated to.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Hmm...the bmi Y seat looks pretty comfy and clean to me

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                        • #13
                          nice pics!
                          There's only One way to fly.... SINGAPORE AIRLINES!
                          If SQ is too expensive, the other way to fly is Qatar Airways

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