SIN-NRT: Consistently consistent.
Having explained the OW Award rules to Mrs H, she was determined not to miss the first sector and void the entire ticket. So on her insistence we were at SIN airport at 0445 for an 0810 departure standing in the J queue while staff organised things at the checkin counters.
Mercifully the opened early for us.
Checked in, we headed for the Dnata lounge. It’s just slightly better than a QF Dom J lounge, but not at the standard of QF int J.
There was a good mix of western and Asian breakfast options, but the best feature was the coffee. Good coffee is hard to find in Asia IMHO, but they had genuine espresso. The only downside was they use UHT milk. Perhaps playing to the Aussies, they prominently displayed signs promoting the coffee brand being from Melbourne.
It may have been 5am but I decided to try the Pinot. Just a half glass. Maybe it was my breakfast tastebuds, the wine itself, or a little of both, but it wasn’t flash. The Shiraz was a Wolf Blass yellow label, so I expect the Pinot was in the same price bracket.
Our aircraft was operating from the furthest possible gate from the Dnata lounge at the end of the C pier.
Remember Mrs H not wanting to miss the first sector? Sadly she remembered too! Were were at the gate a full 45 minutes before departure. Naturally, we were through security in a heartbeat and had our choice of very firm grey or blue seats in neat, bureaucrat-pleasing rows.
Pro tip for boarding JAL: Their order of boarding is JL elites including OW Sapphire, then Business class, PE and so on... Rather than wait for J to be called I played the OW Sapphire Card, literally, and board with the JL elites.
Our aircraft was a B772. JL operate this aircraft in two configurations. The J cabin is a 2-2-2 config for domestic ops and a 1-2-1 config for international.
The seat, menus and service were reviewed by
@drron who flew this sector a couple of days ahead of me. So if you’re not subscribed to his TR, I’d highly recommend it. Check it out here:
Picking up the pieces in Japan.
For comparison purposes, here’s my meal pics. You’ll notice they’re consistently consistent with @drron’s. Imagine if
all the OW airlines could manage that!
A special mention at this point to
@doctork who offered up this delightful Ansett travel wallet on the free to a good home thread last year. I promised him I’d put it to good use and will aim to include it in the TR more than once.
Having never landed on NRT RWY34R I wondered if we were just overflying the field to go around, but we touched down eventually.
And boarded the business class bus
, AKA Armpit Express
for the ride to the terminal.
breakfast. Mrs H and I both tucked into the eggs Benedict, while Miss H had a ham and cheese omelette.
