AUCKLAND to SINGAPORE in Business Class on SQ 747
After a hectic morning with last minute meetings and seeing to all the miscellany of stuff that had to be dealt with before I went, I was glad to settle back on the way to the airport and start relaxing. Traffic was crazy and instead of the usual 30-40 minutes the trip took about 80 minutes. Fortunately I’d anticipated this and left earlier than normal. Besides I wanted to chill out in the lounge pre-flight and a late check in wouldn’t give me this option.
Arriving at the airport I head straight for the F class check in line, which I’m entitled to use thanks to my status. This is the only line in the whole check in area, for all airlines, without a big queue (or indeed any queue at all), on this very busy travel day. I’m processed for check in quickly despite the agent being new. It wasn’t until later that I noticed that she’d ignored the proferred FFP # and the boarding pass showed my Kris Flyer status only rather than PPS status plus the status of the FFP I am crediting miles too. Regular SQ flyers know this spells trouble. I guess I was distracted chatting to the SQ rep.
As usual I pay the departure tax to bypass the big queues at the bank (and avoid the machines using ATM cards to pay for departure tax). The check in agent asks if I know where to go for pre-cleared immigration and to the lounge, then pauses to think and comments “Oh I guess you already know that!”. I answer “yes, thank you” and smile.
Amazingly there is no queue at the immigration desk for premium passengers on SQ, CX, EK etc. So I am soon threading my way through the mass of people downstairs and then up to the pre-cleared immigration line. Here there is a moderate wait, but not as bad as the wait in the main queues. Then on the familiar trek through the labyrinth to the lounge, right, ahead, right again, left, right, up the escalator, and hard left. I’m welcomed back to the lounge by the bouncer.
As the lounge is fairly full I head for a shower to freshen up while there still are showers free. Then it is time for a snack – mmmm Christmas goodies as well as the usual fine lounge fare, and a drink or three.
The time to boarding passes quickly and I then notice the incorrect FFP on my boarding pass. So I head out to the gate a couple of minutes early (for NZ are unable to adjust it in the lounge) and get the FFP # changed at the gate. Either it didn’t stick or SQ had already processed the mileage credits for the flight as miles did end up on Kris Flyer. Grrrr. This annoyed me even more than it used to as the upcoming February massive devaluation makes them worth even less than the larger number of miles I would have earned on another FFP.
But I digress. Boarding has now commenced so I head on up to my favourite SQ business seat – the upper deck exit row window. I am the first one to board upstairs, which is most unusual for me as I would normally wait in the lounge until boarding is almost complete. I grab a Straits Times and a couple of magazines and settle in with pre-departure drink while boarding progresses.
We push back on time, have a short taxi and take off over the city, turn and head across the Tasman Sea. Flight time is announced as being longer than normal due to strong head winds, and indeed our flight path is more northerly than average. So no views of Sydney or Uluru (Ayers Rock).
The flight passes quickly in a blur of eating, drinking, and watching the landscape of northern Australia and Indonesia pass by – at first under clear skies but from near Darwin onwards the view is glimpsed in between towering thunderstorms. We land to a wet Singapore somewhat late.
Only one runway is in operation and so we have a long taxi more than half way around the terminal complex to get to our gate – yup F60, the farthest gate from the lounge.