Guided by the Stars (Alliance)

[Scarlett]

I'm not a capture-photos-whilst-travelling kind of person, so not sure whether this will become a 'proper' trip report or not.

With that disclaimer out of the way, the family Scarlett is travelling over to Europe for the school holidays and because I'm not a normal person, we're taking a slightly convoluted routing. I have applied the AFF adage of why fly direct when you can connect and maybe stretched it a little.

GCMAP shows my flights as:


This is an 18-leg journey (return) to get to and from our destinations: the Portuguese Atlantic islands of the Azores (PDL) and then Madeira (FNC). I say 'my flights' above as Mrs and Mstr Scarlett have different flights for all except the Portuguese domestic flights (to/from the Atlantic islands are domestic flights). The logic for travelling separately is that we're hitting different status requal targets.

As the title suggests, I'm mostly flying with *A to maintain my TK Elite (* Gold) status. The other members of the family are flying a mix of VA, QF, CX and EY as a way of getting closer to lifetime status with QF (oneworld legs) and to maintain VA WP (VA & EY legs). They're using the excellent value EY J fare from MNL to and from LIS.

My flights depicted in the map above are:
CBR-MEL (QF Y) - ticket 1
MEL-SIN-BKK (SQ Y+/Y) - ticket 2 overnight in SIN Aerotel, then a day room for 11 hours near BKK.
BKK-ADD-CAI (ET J) - ticket 3 16 hr transit in Addis Ababa - complimentary hotel/meals provided by ET, then day room at Novotel CAI for 8 hours.
CAI-ATH-LIS (MS J / A3 J) - ticket 4 couple of days to have a look around Lisbon
LIS-PDL (S4 Y) - ticket 5 staying in an apartment near Ponta Delgada
PDL-FNC (S4 Y) - ticket 6 staying in an apartment near Funchal - Mstr Scarlett wants to see the CR7 museum
FNC-OPO-LIS (TP J) - ticket 7 (TK miles redemption for 3 pax) a night at a LIS hotel
LIS-MAD-CAI (IB J) - ticket 8 five hours transit at CAI
CAI-ADD-BKK (return leg of ticket 3) another 16 hr transit at ADD with STPC, then a 5-hour transit in BKK
BKK-SIN-MEL (return leg of ticket 2) SIN-MEL overnight in SQ Y+, not really looking forward to that
MEL-CBR (QF Y award) - ticket 9 4.5 hrs to make the connection in MEL

On the outbound the only overnight flying is in J, otherwise I'm in a hotel bed. On the return leg I'm wearing more risk with the connections, but that's what travel insurance is for and the Cover-More policy we have is one of the few I've found that does actually call out missed connections as being covered (as long as you've allowed 90 minutes or more).

Other notes:
- I'll be in my BKK hotel for the AFL grand final - guess I'll be streaming it to watch. Neither are my teams but Go Lions!
- Planning to get out and have a look at Addis Ababa on one of the stopovers as both are daytime.
- The other stopover I'll be heading to Addis Ababa Golf Club (not really surprising that it's the only golf course in Ethiopia) to play golf in my 81st country. This is out of 193 total countries with golf courses so still a long way to go!
- I've played golf in the Algarve region of Portugal previously, but will certainly be getting out for a game or two whilst on the Atlantic islands.
- This will be the first time I've flown *A members ET and MS. ET cloud nine looks nice enough and the MS flight is only just short of two hours on a narrow-body, so not great expectations, but at least they still have J-recliners rather than eurobusiness seating. I can't say the same for the A3 flight unfortunately.

They say that a journey begins with a single step, but I reckon it's at least 400 steps from QF check in at CBR to the QP...

 

[Scarlett]

I reckon it was about 800 steps from the drop off point to the QP via the stupid check in towers. Had to get a staff member involved in the check in anyway as they have to manually add my oversized baggage (golf clubs) into the system.



This will be the first of 7 lounges to visit before getting to Portugal on the outbound journey.

Then on to the new A220 jet for the short hop down to MEL. I have flown on an LX A220 / Bombardier C-Series previously so not something new personally.



QF1279 CBR-MEL
A220-300 VH-X4B
Dep: Scheduled 1350 - Departed 1424
Arr: Scheduled 1505 - Gate arrival 1518

Jet is nice and clean as you’d expect and the windows seem a little bigger than the standard 737 / 320 families. Legroom in row 10 is poor, but acceptable for the short hop. Snack of carrot sticks, dip and jatz offered along with drinks. Interesting there were small individual bottles of wine available as I thought they were only for post-1500 timed flights. Didn’t see anyone around me actually drinking them. Maybe it’s cheap and nasty stuff?

Still some snow visible. Glare off the engine cowlings was annoying, but pleasant flying conditions.



Couldn’t see any spare seats, which being the start of NSW school holidays and the day before an MCG extravaganza, is probably not surprising.

Captain Speaking managed to drop us onto the runway with a bit of thump and caused a few small ‘ooohhhhs’ from pax somewhere aft.

 

[Scarlett]

We pulled up at a gate near these two:


Won’t be seeing them for much longer.

 

[Scarlett]

35 minutes was all it took at MEL to:
collect bags from QF
walk upstairs to SQ check-in in T2
get new boarding passes
drop off golf bag at oversize
clear security (no wait)
leave Australia via smartgate
navigate through the shopping centre
descend to the SilverKris dungeon
be seated with a plate of noodles
(and the smoky bbq beef is fall apart delicious too!)

Frosted windows only, so no views and quite a few people in already so no photos. Lounge is small but pleasant enough and with a decent selection of Western and Asian food. Looks like plenty of cold Tiger in the fridge if you like that kind of thing.

I noticed yesterday that a recent VA booking was in a higher fare bucket than expected and means I’ve already hit the 800SC for VFF WP requal. So, on checkin, I did a quick check to see that my SQ Y+ fare bucket would earn in TK M&S and changed from my VFF number to TK.

Lounge entry courtesy *A gold.
I note that ‘express path’ was listed on the MEL-SIN boarding pass, but not needed as security had no lines.

FR24 tells me that my inbound SQ aircraft is due to arrive 20 minutes early, so it would seem all is going to plan. <touches wooden table>

 

[Scarlett]

SQ lounge MEL


They’re not choosing one team or the other.


All boarded my first *A airline for the trip. Next stop SIN.

 

[Scarlett]

Having now flown long(ish) haul Y+ on a number of different airlines (QF, VA, SN and now SQ), I guess I can summarise it as just not sucking as much as a regular Y seat. The couples of extra cms of leg room are nice but 8 or more hours still leaves me feeling uncomfortable.

SQ208 MEL-SIN
A350-900 9V-SJE
Dep: sched 1825 / actual 1827
Arr: sched 0015 / actual 2340

The SQ A359 Y+ seats have the recline function where the back does recline a little, but the seat pan moves forward in unison. Didn’t feel particularly comfortable, but at least when the person in front reclined it didn’t seem to be into my face. The leg rest function seemed pointless for anyone over 160 cm in height, much the same as the footrest. I guess the marketing types can wax lyrical about the many features of their seat… most of which I couldn’t use because there’s not enough space to actually use them.

Flight was only half full in Y+ and looked about the same forward in J. SQ staff consistently excellent as usual.


Y+ during boarding. More cushions and blankets than could possibly be needed. In the B789 they’re a 2-4-2 configuration.


Still the same SQ models swanning about the island state for the safety video. Inflight entertainment also excellent.


#1 airport in the world!

I arrived into SIN a little early (early for my booking but 2345 at night) so decided to walk from the gate at the end of T3 around to the Ambassador transit hotel T2 where I had a single room booked for six hours of ‘lie-flat’ sleep. SGD152 and booked about three months out. Price included breakfast at the adjacent Ambassador lounge but I was heading to the SQ lounge so declined the voucher.

Interestingly, and a first for me at SIN, as my booking was 0100-0700 and I arrived to check in early (at 0025) I was still told my check out would be 0700. Usually I’ve found these sleep by the hour arrangements are very strict on timings, but maybe I caught the desk guy in a good mood. Meant I was showered and in bed by 0100. YMMV with such things, and the other guy checking in at the same time (by a different staff member) was told to be out at 0630.

 

[Scarlett]

After mostly decent sleep it’s off to the mediocre SIN T2 KrisFlyer Gold lounge where I had the full experience:
- toilet facilities outside the lounge
- blandest scrambled eggs in the world (necessitated addition of some sambal)
- inaudible announcements
- manbags, satchels and gym bags on seats everywhere

It was pretty full first thing around 0700 but had thinned out by 0800. Seats always available as pax turnover is pretty constant.

Coffee and food free, plentiful powerpoints etc. First world problems with this lounge...

 

[Scarlett]

You could’ve been forgiven for thinking this was in the Middle East somewhere:



MEL yesterday whilst boarding SQ flight.

 

[Scarlett]

SQ708 SIN-BKK
A350-900 9V-SHI
Dep: sched 0930 / actual 0951
Arr: sched 1100 / actual 1050

Back in whY for this hop up to BKK as there was no Y+ cabin on this A359 layout. With a spare middle seat, as I had on this flight, I do struggle to see the difference between the products.


I like the fact that when they built the Jewel they kept the inter terminal shuttle just running through the middle of it.

Anyone know if the SQ ‘bird’ on the tail fin actually has a name?


Googling yields someone on Flyertalk euphemistically calling it a ‘golden goose’ and Wiki just says a bird stylised from a keris (south East Asian dagger). Whatever it is, they’ve done a great job keeping the Siiiimon’s of the marketing world away from it.

 

[Scarlett]

On another note, I couldn’t get a decent photo heading out of BKK but there were about 5 A380s sitting very forlornly in a corner piece of tarmac. Faded livery like they’d just had the life sucked out of them.
Sad.

BKK was its usual hive of organised chaos. Didn’t have to go from the baggage belt to oversized to collect my golf bag as it came out on the standard belt. I’d seen a couple of golf bags come out (travellers from Switzerland) so waited around and sure enough mine did too. In maybe 300 flights with a golf bag that was only the second time it hadn’t been separated from the rest of the luggage at delivery.

Found my shuttle meeting point and now in a day room near BKK.

More chaos but they do make this work!

I notice that @Forg had a ride booked!

 

[Scarlett]

After a couple of hours in my day room BKK hotel (basic place but was okay - what do you expect for AUD50), it was back in the hotel shuttle for the ten minute trip to BKK.

ET check in smooth and I was given a pass for the Miracle Lounge as J pax. Seems like there are plenty of them scattered about BKK, but the one I went in to near gate D5 was pretty basic. Had some panang curry which was okay but quickly moved on to find the nearest *A lounge (TG near gate D4), which was much better. Not too long there as the flight was leaving from the new Satellite terminal and that took about 15 minutes to get to the gate, including waiting a couple of minutes for the shuttle train to get to the other terminal. TG lounge angels advised no *A lounge over there.

Boarding was mostly complete by the time I arrived, about 35 minutes before scheduled departure.

Was offered tangerine juice, bubbles of some sort, or water as a pdb. The ET B787-8 has a 2-2-2 config in J. Either they were angled flat recliners or mine wouldn’t travel to flat.



ET629 BKK-ADD
B787-8 ET-ARE
Dep: sched 0150 / actual 0207
Arr: sched 0600 / actual 0540

Very similar layout to the TK A330s I’ve spent a fair bit of time on and completely fine but nothing spectacular. Crew friendly and welcoming. The three 20-something Chinese that boarded after me were obnoxious and loud until after takeoff, even though the rest of the cabin was clearly trying to rest. Had a spare seat beside me until taxi at which point a guy from somewhere else in J moved to that aisle seat to sit closer to his wife.

Basic amenities kit, blanket and bottle of water at the seat. Dinner and breakfast orders taken while waiting at the gate. We actually waited for about 30 mins until one J final pax arrived. Might’ve had a delayed connection as he was toting an I Cambodia satchel. Or maybe he was just a dykwia on his own time?

I declined dinner as the flight was only scheduled as 7:30, so got changed into pjs, earplugs, and mask; reclined the seat and got a good five hours of broken sleep. Some turbulence somewhere during the dark.

The route went WNW from BKK, across central India and then turned WSW to the gulf of Aden, then straight up the middle of that waterway to ADD.



J pax off first to a waiting bus then into the terminal.

Some menu shots to follow later and arrival/entry notes.

 

[Scarlett]

ET J catering and drinks BKK-ADD

 

[Scarlett]

At the gate in BKK I’d been given my STPC hotel ‘voucher’ for the Ethiopian Skylight hotel during my 16 hour stopover.

On arrival in ADD we were shuttled across from the stand-off bay to the terminal then had a 5-600m walk to firstly transit security and that’s where the bulk of the pax seemed to be heading (a B777 had pulled up to a gate just before we’d been shuttled across). Past that was immigration. I was under the assumption that ET were covering my visa for entry to Ethiopia (Aus passports can get VoA), so I briefly hesitated near the visa counters then just pressed on toward the immi booths. A guy was manning the lines (vacant lines!) and wanted me to go back over somewhere else, I think to get a form. I told him I was transit only and had the hotel booked by ET. He said, ‘only 12 hours’ as a question, I replied yes and he let me through. The immi agent took my passport, onwards boarding pass and the voucher/letter, did her thing for a minute and I was admitted to Ethiopia. Pretty certain there was no stamp in the passport.

Downstairs to baggage claim and this *A airline knows who we are:


Dedicated carousel for J / *Gold

And looky-here: my golf bag is first off and is being delivered on the carousel for the second successive flight. Oversize luggage collection points are so last month.

I will admit I have no idea whether this separate carousel was any faster. I’d waited 20 minutes for any movement. Couldn’t see down to carousel 4 where the rest of the BKK flights bags were being sent.

Whilst waiting I went to withdraw some local currency, some birr, from an ATM. Using the NAB basic debit card (formerly the Citi debit) was no problem and I withdrew 7000 birr (~AUD100). Now the problem: they all came out as 200 birr notes so I had quite the wad to stuff into my wallet.

Bags collected, through a customs xray and then 25m to an ET stopover desk. The shuttle had just pulled up so straight onto that I went. Luggage goes into the shuttle with you, which is not ideal.


Dawn at Addis walking out of the terminal to the shuttle.


ET transfer shuttle to Skylight hotel.

We pulled back in to a different part of the terminal so that three ET Captains could get on and they all squeezed up the front. Then 5 mins to the hotel.


Maybe ETs first aircraft - a Dak in a roundabout? I’ll try to get a better photo next time.

 

[Scarlett]

Hotel check in was slow and everyone checking out seemed to just push in to drop off their cards. Can’t complain about the room or the hotel; all nice enough.


Double the car park viewing pleasure! Although the far one is a bus park, so don’t know whether that really counts.

Was given vouchers for B, L and D due to checking in at 0700 and out for a 2000 shuttle back to the airport.

Eventually found the restaurant I’m supposed to go to for breakfast and it was almost empty and a little dungeon like. Called The Hub Restaurant and it’s certainly African themed.



Had a small snack as mostly just wanted coffee and read the news. Then it was back to the room to get changed and ready to go and play golf in country number 81.

Even though I asked for a taxi, the concierge desk sorted me out with an Ethiopian rideshare car in about 10 minutes and I was on my way.

Addis Ababa Golf Club, the only golf course in the country, is on the site of the old airport. It’s now 18 holes of golf adjacent to the newly built Ministry of Defence. I guess it’s mostly military players at the course. Green fee expensive, but that’s generally the norm in countries where golf is still a very 1% thing. I don’t like caddies but was pretty much told to take one. A few others out on a Sunday.

I’d sum up the course in one word as: rural.


It’s very lush as September is the end of the wet season. They actually only have 9 of their 18 holes open during the wet season and apparently they’ll be back open fully in another couple of weeks.


Had a bit of a downpour for about 25 minutes, hence the plastic cover on the golf bag and my caddie still with my umbrella up. I should’ve known how boggy it was going to be, by the fact the caddie changed his shoes into wellies before we set off.


I did say rural.


This is a path to a tee box!

Played the 9 holes twice for a complete round and then back into another Ethiopian Uber style thing back to the hotel.

Oh, another point of note: the caddie tried to steal my wallet. Actually he did steal my wallet. After the rain stopped and he took the cover off and put it away I just had a feeling something dodgy was going on. Checked the little dry pocket of my bag shortly thereafter and sure enough, no wallet. Asked him where it was and he scurried off back in the direction of the previous hole and returned a few minutes later with it, claiming it must have fallen out… complete bs. Let the club know after the round so I’d like to think he no longer has a job.

 

[Scarlett]

ET452 ADD-CAI
A350-900 ET-AWN
Dep: sched 2205 / actual 2240
Arr: sched 0205 / actual 0148
(note the excessive schedule padding…)

I had planned to go over and have my complimentary dinner at the ET Skylight hotel, but getting there at 1800 when it supposedly started, yielded only some salads and desserts. Snacked on a little from each but by 1840 the main courses still hadn’t appeared so I went back to pack and figured I’d have something at the ET lounge.

Shuttle back to ADD had been scheduled for me as 2005, a sensible two hours before the flight, but as I was ready early I jumped on the 1935 shuttle. Getting into ADD was pretty ridiculous. Lines just to get inside the terminal as they were scanning everything: shoes off, watches off etc. If the xray operator saw anything concerning, they left their seat to check it out. So the flow stopped. Hence the lines.

There was an F, J, *Gold line and that was the one I was in but still a 30 minute process just to get in. Once done there, quickly rechecked in at the J counters, clubs dropped at oversize counter and into another line for a repeat of the security shambles. Again, a dedicated *A ‘Fast Track’ lane that clearly exists in concept only. 20 minutes to clear that security, two minutes for immigration out and into the packed ADD terminal.

I recall reading someone else’s comment about ADD and how ET has banks of flights leading to facilities being rammed with people (probably by @Flashback) and this was certainly the case last night. ET Cloud Nine lounge was busy, with searching required to find a seat. Mediocre lounge, but plenty of food and drinks if you wanted them. No announcements as the bank of flights departing from 2100 was a constant of green boarding notes on the monitors.

Due to the security faff, I had a quick bite to eat and a drink then headed to the gate as my flight started boarding. Below is a terminal view:



At the gate it was again a mess: boarding had started and they have four boarding lanes numbered 1 to 4. J and *Gold in lane 1 etc. However they’d clearly started boarding lanes 1 and 2 together but the pax weren’t allowed onto the aircraft, so had become jammed in the jetbridge all the way back to the gate agents who just kept scanning people on. I had my boarding pass scanned and then stood next to the agent for the next 25 minutes waiting for some movement (only one other lane 1 person arrived after me). Lots of people getting emotional and plenty of people trying it on coming into the lane 1 line as it looked empty compared to the massive other queues. Credit to the gate agent who always politely asked ‘business?’, checked the positively proffered boarding pass and then instantly turned dismissive and sent them away to the back some other queue.

The ET A350-900 has 6-across J in a 2-2-2 layout, but slightly different and more private than the 787 I’d been on into ADD. I had a vacant seat beside me, but mostly the cabin was full.



Again I declined dinner, finished watching the new Ghostbusters movie (4/10) during completion of boarding, taxi and takeoff and then reclined to try and get a little sleep on the shortish sector to CAI. In what felt like only a few minutes (but was probably close to 2 hours sleep), I was woken by the descent and endless PA announcements.

The blurry lights of Cairo seemed to go on for quite a while during the straight in descent.

 

[Scarlett]

I had my pre-purchased $25 for single entry Visa for Egypt (had taken about 24 hours after payment, so not an instantaneous thing) and immigration was a simple 5 minute exercise. Then the waiting for bags began. And continued. Then after 30 minutes the first bags appeared. Then stopped. Then the next batch started 10 minutes later. Finally after an hour, those with the laughingly named ‘Priority’ tags appeared.

Then I had a ten minute wait out the front of the arrivals area of the terminal at the ‘hotels shuttle’ zone, for the Novotel shuttle to arrive. Inside whilst walking to the exit and whilst waiting outside was a constant exercise swatting away the taxi touts and others offering to ‘help’ in one way or another.

 

[kpc]

Im a bit worried about your experiences in Add...ET are becoming a major player in Africa with flights to Europe, Asia and Africa using Add as the transit hub. I heard good things about the newness of their planes (737 Max excepted) and thought I might use them for my next flight to Africa...also ET seems to have some award availability with LMs!

 

[Scarlett]

Im a bit worried about your experiences in Add...ET are becoming a major player in Africa with flights to Europe, Asia and Africa using Add as the transit hub. I heard good things about the newness of their planes (737 Max excepted) and thought I might use them for my next flight to Africa...also ET seems to have some award availability with LMs!

I’ll see how the return leg goes in a fortnight, but I wouldn’t be worried. Everything about ET was fine, mediocre, but fine. It’s no SQ or QR, but then the majority of airlines aren’t. The J product was fine for sleeping and the cabin crew always pleasant. Certainly no problem if you’re travelling as a pair with the 2-2-2 layouts. I remember doing one transpac trip in UA J where we were 4 across…

Addis was also fine and I intend to head to the Ethiopian national museum during my next 14 hour transit. I’ve recently lived in Indonesia for a couple of years so maybe my definition of fine may be different from many others, but nothing felt unsafe and I’ll have no hesitation to walk about the city.

As for the airport and the mass of people, it wasn’t that different from a busy BKK or the old IST where they had more people than the terminal was designed to handle. ET seem to be victims of their own success.

 

[Scarlett]

As there were only two of us in the shuttle to the Novotel, it was a quick check in and up to my allocated room. The whole hotel felt like it had been built in the 90s and then never properly cleaned or upgraded. The carpets were pretty poorly stained and it definitely felt like the bottom end of Accor properties. The grounds and pool look nice, but the actual living accom part is relatively poor. The great advantage of the hotel is that it’s very close to the airport and has a regular shuttle!


The view from my room. Yes, close to the airport, but no noise in the room as it’s double-windowed. But they’re openable, which I did for this image and because the aircon seemed to just stay on one temp which was just a little too cool. So I opened the window for some fresh air and although that may seem like an oxymoron in Cairo, I found it pleasant. The paraphernalia on the ground was for a corporate team exercise which started around lunch time.

Breakfast was relatively basic but had most things you’d expect. Coffee was rubbish, not helped by Mrs Scarlett having just arrived at the lounge used by TP at FCO (Schengen side, terminal 1) and messaged me that the Italian espresso she was having was good.

Another positive for the hotel was that although check out is notionally 1200, it seemed there was almost automatic approval for a later check out to 1400, so I caught the 1400 shuttle (every 30 minutes on the hour & half-hour) back to CAI.

Again with the excessive security, but I guess it keeps large numbers of people employed and being officious. Even with the nude-o-scope style machine, everything off: watches, shoes, belts… More *A Fast Track lanes for check in and access to immigration. Although the shuttle dropped me off at terminal 3, I’m actual departing from B gates so am in terminal 2. Had to turn left immediately after immigration then walk through a connector walkway into T2 and then clear security again. Now in the MS lounge and it’s, basic.

Flight boarding now so off to try another new *A airline.