munitalP
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- Oct 10, 2006
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Stepping from a flight from SYD at about 2030, on Friday 22nd May, Blackberry buzzed with an email from a supplier informing me of some world first testing happening in JB the following Monday and would I like to attend - of course, and here's the outcome...
Mr!
24 May 2009 MEL/SYD QF426 Y 13C
I had Mrs! Drive me out to Tulla for a 1040 departure MEL/SYD/SIN. I chose to fly via SYD opposed to having an employee whom was travelling with me to SIN travel alone or travel to MEL for a MEL/SIN flight.
I checked my luggage through to SIN – the DOM check in didn’t have F tags and my SYD/SIN boarding pass (QF319 Code share BA) didn’t have any status details on it, only my QF FF number. I had logged onto the BA site on Saturday afternoon after my bookings were ticketed and allocated seats 26A & 26C (exit row) for me and my employee on the hope no one would want the B seat.
A question – does anyone have access to EXIT row seating on the BA website or is it just Emerald?
I wandered through to the QP-J lounge and had some quick breakfast with my flight being called final. I trotted down to the gate and found myself without a neighbour – good start so far. Again I was allocated an EXIT row even though my profile says forward isle.
At SYD, I boarded the bus to the INT terminal and it wasn’t long before I was out in the terminal finding one of my employees who needed to check in. Being booked a QF flight I wandered into the QF F check in with him to be informed that we would need to check in with BA – no problems – off we went to the BA F desk.
What a ratty bunch of people working for BA. It was like collectively they were having a bad day and they weren’t afraid to let the world know either!
I asked for my BP to be changed to a BA BP – what an issue this was to the lady who served us, she insisted that it was a huge effort and begrudgingly issued me a new BP (which had my status clearly showing). I then asked for an express card – she gave me 1. I pointed out there were two of us travelling on the same booking and I needed another for my employee, she wouldn’t budge – absolute nasty lady having a bad hair day! I walked over to the service counter and they gave me another express card without question.
We wandered through to immigration, expressed past hundreds of waiting people and were heading up the escalator towards the Flounge in no time at all.
I indulged myself in a couple of champers and a swordfish steak – yummy! My employee had multiple mains – it was like he hadn’t eaten in a month, his excuse was it was his first time Flounging and he wanted to experience all it had to offer – fair enough I thought. The bowl of fresh raspberries was a little over the top though (but very nice!).
We boarded out 777 and into row 26 to our assigned seats – no window adjacent to the seat however with some creative reclining, there was a view from A. The lady in 27B decided to do an on the plane 800 quid upgrade to J and it was looking good for an empty B seat, that was until a 6’6” bloke wandered in and had EXIT row all over his face – my heart sank as he wedged himself into the B seat. To his credit, he called the FA over and asked for a seat change which she promptly looked after – so for 5 minutes, I had a neighbour!
The flight got underway a little late and we took off into a nice afternoon of chasing the sun towards the nth west. Our flight path was quite strange – we crossed Katherine then turned towards SIN creating quite a lot of extra travel distance on our flight path. There didn’t seem to be storms or anything in the area and I wondered if that was fallout from the diving A320 last year and just a general avoidance of the area around that bit of WA...
Dinner was served – chicken, veges, green salad with fresh tomato and a nice fruit desert thing. A few G&T’s were had as well as a JD& coke over the flight and the 8 or so hours were chewed up pretty quickly.
After pulling into the gate – C25 I think, we headed towards immigration via a thermographic scan, through immigration and down to wait for our luggage.
Singapore is usually a fast efficient airport, I don’t think I have ever had to wait for my luggage for more than a few minutes but tonight the luggage took a long time – maybe 15 minutes or longer...
However bad, still better than SYD at 0800 on a Monday morning or MEL at 1700 on a Friday night!
We shot through the green lane and out to the taxi rank. My employees first impression of Singapore was hot and humid – I told him to reserve his judgement till the next day and the sun was up!
We taxied to the Furama City Centre – I chose this hotel due to its location to the bus rank we would need for our daily commute to Johor Bahru and also the fact it was close to China town – I had a mission that whilst in Singapore, I would buy a new Chinese tea pot and cups...
Oh my God – a centre building room... no windows in my room! This was the worst room I have ever had in my entire life – this has got to change, but I’m too tired now and it will wait till the morrow...
Mr!
24 May 2009 MEL/SYD QF426 Y 13C
I had Mrs! Drive me out to Tulla for a 1040 departure MEL/SYD/SIN. I chose to fly via SYD opposed to having an employee whom was travelling with me to SIN travel alone or travel to MEL for a MEL/SIN flight.
I checked my luggage through to SIN – the DOM check in didn’t have F tags and my SYD/SIN boarding pass (QF319 Code share BA) didn’t have any status details on it, only my QF FF number. I had logged onto the BA site on Saturday afternoon after my bookings were ticketed and allocated seats 26A & 26C (exit row) for me and my employee on the hope no one would want the B seat.
A question – does anyone have access to EXIT row seating on the BA website or is it just Emerald?
I wandered through to the QP-J lounge and had some quick breakfast with my flight being called final. I trotted down to the gate and found myself without a neighbour – good start so far. Again I was allocated an EXIT row even though my profile says forward isle.
At SYD, I boarded the bus to the INT terminal and it wasn’t long before I was out in the terminal finding one of my employees who needed to check in. Being booked a QF flight I wandered into the QF F check in with him to be informed that we would need to check in with BA – no problems – off we went to the BA F desk.
What a ratty bunch of people working for BA. It was like collectively they were having a bad day and they weren’t afraid to let the world know either!
I asked for my BP to be changed to a BA BP – what an issue this was to the lady who served us, she insisted that it was a huge effort and begrudgingly issued me a new BP (which had my status clearly showing). I then asked for an express card – she gave me 1. I pointed out there were two of us travelling on the same booking and I needed another for my employee, she wouldn’t budge – absolute nasty lady having a bad hair day! I walked over to the service counter and they gave me another express card without question.
We wandered through to immigration, expressed past hundreds of waiting people and were heading up the escalator towards the Flounge in no time at all.
I indulged myself in a couple of champers and a swordfish steak – yummy! My employee had multiple mains – it was like he hadn’t eaten in a month, his excuse was it was his first time Flounging and he wanted to experience all it had to offer – fair enough I thought. The bowl of fresh raspberries was a little over the top though (but very nice!).
We boarded out 777 and into row 26 to our assigned seats – no window adjacent to the seat however with some creative reclining, there was a view from A. The lady in 27B decided to do an on the plane 800 quid upgrade to J and it was looking good for an empty B seat, that was until a 6’6” bloke wandered in and had EXIT row all over his face – my heart sank as he wedged himself into the B seat. To his credit, he called the FA over and asked for a seat change which she promptly looked after – so for 5 minutes, I had a neighbour!
The flight got underway a little late and we took off into a nice afternoon of chasing the sun towards the nth west. Our flight path was quite strange – we crossed Katherine then turned towards SIN creating quite a lot of extra travel distance on our flight path. There didn’t seem to be storms or anything in the area and I wondered if that was fallout from the diving A320 last year and just a general avoidance of the area around that bit of WA...
Dinner was served – chicken, veges, green salad with fresh tomato and a nice fruit desert thing. A few G&T’s were had as well as a JD& coke over the flight and the 8 or so hours were chewed up pretty quickly.
After pulling into the gate – C25 I think, we headed towards immigration via a thermographic scan, through immigration and down to wait for our luggage.
Singapore is usually a fast efficient airport, I don’t think I have ever had to wait for my luggage for more than a few minutes but tonight the luggage took a long time – maybe 15 minutes or longer...
However bad, still better than SYD at 0800 on a Monday morning or MEL at 1700 on a Friday night!
We shot through the green lane and out to the taxi rank. My employees first impression of Singapore was hot and humid – I told him to reserve his judgement till the next day and the sun was up!
We taxied to the Furama City Centre – I chose this hotel due to its location to the bus rank we would need for our daily commute to Johor Bahru and also the fact it was close to China town – I had a mission that whilst in Singapore, I would buy a new Chinese tea pot and cups...
Oh my God – a centre building room... no windows in my room! This was the worst room I have ever had in my entire life – this has got to change, but I’m too tired now and it will wait till the morrow...
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