From New York to London (via New Zealand): AA, QF, CX, BA (F/J)
Oct 5, 2011, 2:15 pm
#61
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
8A/16: Cx f (3)
CX751 HKG-BKK B744 (74A) B-HOS
As you know, I had a lot of trouble finding something that was sticky three class for the second day of my weekend run. There was just nothing reliable out there. I was toying with the idea of Osaka when I was still blocked in for Haneda, but was reluctant to commit because I wanted to have my cake and eat it – not only something sticky three class, but a new destination as well. Of course, as you now know, I ended up flying to Osaka anyway. I was so indecisive about whether to switch from HND that I ended up tossing a coin to decide whether to try for a 744 versus going for a new airport.
Round about three months after I had a tentatively finalised (but as yet unticketed) itinerary CX changed their HKG-BKK-DEL-HKG triangle from a sold-as-two-class 74A to selling all three classes. Bang. Quick email to my contact at CX, who I think by now had just ceased to be surprised by any email arriving from my address.
Top of climb was going to Delhi. Delhi airport, anyway. Which raises the perennial question: can one say that they’ve been to India if they spend four hours airside in the airport terminal?
Anyway.
Although Delhi ticked off the criteria of having reliable three class service, the timings wasn’t fantastic. Because the flight goes via BKK, the journey out is longer than the 5 hours nonstop that it would take flying back. Adding a lengthier than usual ground turn in DEL meant that this would be a 20 hour run door to door.
Still. What’s the point in flying First if you can’t put the bed in flat mode and sleep the night away? And it wasn’t like I needed to be anywhere the Monday morning I got back. The sleep problem I brushed off to one side.
Other problems not so easily swept aside were the logistics of the turn. However, Delhi has recently built a brand spanking new international facility at their airport. T3. Just in time for the Commonwealth Games earlier this year. And I do mean just in time. I think it opened a few hours before the first athletes arrived. And as part of their brand spanking new international facility – a FT-reported seamless international transit facility. I didn’t really want the risk of missing my return flight by being mired in Indian exit and entry bureaucracy.
CX was concerned whether I needed a visa. TIMATIC, which very quickly became my bestest friend as I worked through the logistics of the turn with CX sales, said that New Zealand passport holders didn’t need a visa for international to international transit. Questions were raised whether I actually fell within an international to international transit category since I wasn’t transiting to a third country but was going right back to whence I had come. Luckily, Delhi is one of four Indian airports which also offer visas-on-arrival for tourists with New Zealand passports. In exchange for USD60 and a passport photo, India would happily stamp me into their country. Worst came to worst, I figured I could make a quick exit into the country, then nip straight back through passport control.
Check in at Hong Kong was deserted, both agent wise and passenger wise. The presence of India on my itinerary and no presence of visa in my passport caused a slight problem for the agent, who wanted to double check the entry requirements but whose TIMATIC system wasn’t playing ball. At one stage, I had four agents on the other side of the podium as they tried to force the system to do their bidding, including the agent who had checked me in yesterday and who was probably wondering what the hell I was doing back there.
The Wing is being renovated. Business Class (Lower) was completed earlier this year and now the whole Business Class (Upper) section is closed off for works. I had no desire to spend the two hours until my flight waiting for an internet page to load so had made up my mind to park myself in The Cabin for a light lunch. However, first I decided I wanted a shower. It was thirty plus degrees outside, not to mention Hong Kong humid. Plus, the newly renovated Business Class (Lower) lounge in The Wing was reputed to sport some gorgeous new rainforest showers. I, intrepid Trip Reporter, wanted to explore.
I got a very funny look from the staff when I showed up at the Wing’s Business Class lounge reception clutching a First Class boarding pass and lounge invitation. This was so like the reactions that I had gotten much through yesterday that I was wondering whether someone had called a staff meeting with my photo. I was gently told that I could use the First Class section upstairs but they relented when I told them I wanted to try out the new renovated showers. Actually relent is probably the wrong word. It was more like they laughed and waved me in. As in a “I can’t believe you’re mad enough to step foot in this crowded lounge with a view over a parking lot when you could be upstairs eating a restaurant-quality meal and being waited on hand and foot but if you want to do it then come right on in” laugh. In a nice way.
The new downstairs section is certainly much sleeker and warmer than the old grey granite scheme. And the showers! I wish I had them at home. Though I wouldn’t like to be paying the water bill for them.
Only one quibble. I’m not sure which numbskull designed the showers – someone famous, no doubt – but he must have a slave which turns the water on for him. Because the shower taps are located on the other side of the showerhead from the entryway. If there were instructions, they would read something like: 1/ Turn on taps. 2/Jump the hell back as soon as you turn on the tap to avoid being drenched by the shower coming on. There’s also no door to the shower stall. Which is not as bad as it sounds privacy wise, since there’s obviously a door and lock to the shower/bathroom cubicle itself; but my very firm suggestion to anyone using the showers in The Wing is to keep shoes and bags well back from the area to the entry to the shower. As I discovered, a combination of the excellent water pressure and the not so excellent drainage is that it’s rather easy to recreate the Great Flood outside of the main shower area.
I scuttled over on to The Cabin afterwards.
The Cabin was designed to be twinned with The Wing, so a lot of its features are complementary to, rather than a duplication of, The Wing. Thus, unlike The Wing, it has no showers. No noodle bar. And much faster internet.
The flagship food station in The Cabin is The Deli. Smoked salmon and salads, hot toasted sandwiches. And, my favourite feature, The Health Bar. Fresh squeezed juices. Seriously, why can one not get fresh watermelon juice in other countries with the ease that you can get it in Asia?
The Deli:
Normal buffet station with hot dishes and sandwiches:
Tables and chairs area for eating:
There are some group seating areas by the food and beverage bars, and windowside seating suitable for couples, but most of the lounge is taken up by the Cathay Solus chair, designed for the discerning individual business traveller. I was very sceptical about the idea and the design when I first saw the photos, but they really were very comfortable and not at all confining if pointed out towards a window. The inbuilt table might be a bit small if you were trying to balance laptop, papers and a tray of food, but I was happy as a clam with just my tray of smoked salmon, potato salad, watermelon juice and fresh fruit salad. Not that I know how we determine the happiness of clams.
I left a little early for a bit of a wander around the central concourse before the flight was called for boarding at gate 27. Another repeat gate. Another repeat plane. Boo hiss. Still, I did get to see the extent to which the CX machine works. The sole job of this agent was to stand at the top of the escalator, which feeds from the transit point downstairs, with two A4 pieces of paper. One piece reading Dubai (plus gate number) and the other piece reading Riyadh (plus gate number). Whenever the escalator spat someone out – invariably a female, non-Chinese who let’s face it fit the stereotype of a Southeast Asian domestic helper perfectly – the agent’s job was to stick the appropriate piece of paper in front of Transiting Passenger and point at the gate number written on it.
Fascinating, not least because I pondered how they even decided that such a position was necessary. Large number of misconnects from Southeast Asian flights to Middle Eastern ones? Lots of frantic trying to find missing connecting passengers who didn’t speak Chinese or English? The mind boggles.
Here’s a photo of the plane being catered with lots of delicious food. The Cathay livery really suits the elegant lines of the 747. And it’s a nice change from the pervasive Eurowhite.
A consequence of being up and about meant that I could sidle in line for the boarding queue a bit early, and got to be first on. Not so exciting was the fact they tore my boarding pass and left me with only the stub, a rarity in Hong Kong. It’s so much nicer to have the whole card for the collection.
We were 6 out of 9 for the short flight down to Bangkok. It was a strange bunch. Mr 1K hobbled to his seat and started demanding from the cabin crew the flight time to Bangkok, the layover time there and the flight time to Delhi. Mr 2K tossed his jandals into the aisle and was put out at the fact that the champagne was Deutz and wanted to know where the Krug was. Mr 3A started talking to the crew about night landing slots at Delhi.
In retrospect, one of these things should have tipped me off. We had a FlyerTalker amongst us! Well, another FlyerTalker. In addition to me. Obviously.
The champagne might have been Deutz but it had bubbles. It was cold. I was happy.
Takeoff. I don’t need to write about this. You can read the Wikipedia page about Bernoulli’s theory if you want to know the specifics.
The crew came round with the menus and immigration cards for Thailand. I took the opportunity to mention to the purser that I had yet to receive my onward boarding pass at Delhi and was wondering if she could pass a message to the ground staff there so I could have an easier transit.
Her: “Oh, where are you transiting to?”
Me: “Um... Hong Kong.”
Her: ....
Her: “But... aren’t we just leaving Hong Kong now?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: <light dawning as realisation sets in that yes there are people that crazy> “You’re just flying for a plane ride?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: “I feel really sorry for you!”
One of my friends has accused me of perhaps liking to bemuse airline staff a bit too much, and I have to say sometimes I think she may have a point.
Still, I told the purser that she shouldn’t feel sorry for me because I liked flying, loved Cathay and after all it wasn’t as if I was doing it in a hard shell 32 inch seat pitch down the back. As demonstrated by the food service for this sector, which was a full whack despite the flying time topping out at just over two hours. Don’t be fooled by the menu billing it as refreshment.
Refreshment
Starter
Lemon and olive oil prawns with mixed salad
Main Courses
Kung Po prawns with steamed jasmine rice, braised Chinese zucchini with fried garlic and dried shrimp
Gorsht korma, kesari pulao, khumb curry
Creamy lamb curry with saffron basmati rice and mushroom curry
Chana masala, matar pulao, paneer masala
Chick pea masala with pea basmati rice and cottage cheese masala
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Dessert
Yuzu and milk chocolate cake with pear compote
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
The meal service started later than I would have expected given the flying time, with about an hour to go, but the crew timed everything perfectly and I never felt rushed. The only service difference from a normal meal was that all of the cutlery came prewrapped in the napkin, rather than being laid separately for each course.
If anyone wants to do a type-of-bread-roll comparison between today and yesterday, I don’t want to deprive you.
Not, in my opinion, Catering’s best decision to have both a starter of prawns and a mains option of prawns. Nor my best decision to have both the starter of prawns and the mains of prawns. I really should have gone for the lamb curry; buyer’s regret which hit especially hard when opening the BKK-DEL menu and not liking either Indian option.
Once upon a time no one had ever heard of yuzu, and nowadays it pops up everywhere from dessert to yoghurt flavours.
Pralines were the same as yesterday. Right down to the exact quantities of the different types. Take my word for it.
Last report I took photos of the cabin. This report you get photos of the bathroom.
Now I’m not normally one to take pictures of bathrooms but these are pretty spectacular bathrooms for a plane. Proper sinks. Proper water pressure. And a great view. Who needs gold plating a la Royal Brunei when you can have two windows looking out over clear blue sky? (They come with opaque shades for when you’re on the ground).
Bangkok was threatening rain but we touched down at Suvarnabhumi (the pronunciation of which was massacred by the ISM on arrival) without the heavens breaking. I tried to see if I could pick out the terminal building sinking into the ground but either my eyesight wasn’t good enough or those who forgot to factor in the fact that they built the airport on a swamp have now managed to correct their oversight. This was a new airport for me, so it was slightly sad that I couldn’t pop inside to see whether the interior really was the soulless concrete cavern that everyone says it is, but it turned out that the hour and three quarters layover in BKK would be much less dull than I anticipated.
As you know, I had a lot of trouble finding something that was sticky three class for the second day of my weekend run. There was just nothing reliable out there. I was toying with the idea of Osaka when I was still blocked in for Haneda, but was reluctant to commit because I wanted to have my cake and eat it – not only something sticky three class, but a new destination as well. Of course, as you now know, I ended up flying to Osaka anyway. I was so indecisive about whether to switch from HND that I ended up tossing a coin to decide whether to try for a 744 versus going for a new airport.
Round about three months after I had a tentatively finalised (but as yet unticketed) itinerary CX changed their HKG-BKK-DEL-HKG triangle from a sold-as-two-class 74A to selling all three classes. Bang. Quick email to my contact at CX, who I think by now had just ceased to be surprised by any email arriving from my address.
Top of climb was going to Delhi. Delhi airport, anyway. Which raises the perennial question: can one say that they’ve been to India if they spend four hours airside in the airport terminal?
Anyway.
Although Delhi ticked off the criteria of having reliable three class service, the timings wasn’t fantastic. Because the flight goes via BKK, the journey out is longer than the 5 hours nonstop that it would take flying back. Adding a lengthier than usual ground turn in DEL meant that this would be a 20 hour run door to door.
Still. What’s the point in flying First if you can’t put the bed in flat mode and sleep the night away? And it wasn’t like I needed to be anywhere the Monday morning I got back. The sleep problem I brushed off to one side.
Other problems not so easily swept aside were the logistics of the turn. However, Delhi has recently built a brand spanking new international facility at their airport. T3. Just in time for the Commonwealth Games earlier this year. And I do mean just in time. I think it opened a few hours before the first athletes arrived. And as part of their brand spanking new international facility – a FT-reported seamless international transit facility. I didn’t really want the risk of missing my return flight by being mired in Indian exit and entry bureaucracy.
CX was concerned whether I needed a visa. TIMATIC, which very quickly became my bestest friend as I worked through the logistics of the turn with CX sales, said that New Zealand passport holders didn’t need a visa for international to international transit. Questions were raised whether I actually fell within an international to international transit category since I wasn’t transiting to a third country but was going right back to whence I had come. Luckily, Delhi is one of four Indian airports which also offer visas-on-arrival for tourists with New Zealand passports. In exchange for USD60 and a passport photo, India would happily stamp me into their country. Worst came to worst, I figured I could make a quick exit into the country, then nip straight back through passport control.
Check in at Hong Kong was deserted, both agent wise and passenger wise. The presence of India on my itinerary and no presence of visa in my passport caused a slight problem for the agent, who wanted to double check the entry requirements but whose TIMATIC system wasn’t playing ball. At one stage, I had four agents on the other side of the podium as they tried to force the system to do their bidding, including the agent who had checked me in yesterday and who was probably wondering what the hell I was doing back there.
The Wing is being renovated. Business Class (Lower) was completed earlier this year and now the whole Business Class (Upper) section is closed off for works. I had no desire to spend the two hours until my flight waiting for an internet page to load so had made up my mind to park myself in The Cabin for a light lunch. However, first I decided I wanted a shower. It was thirty plus degrees outside, not to mention Hong Kong humid. Plus, the newly renovated Business Class (Lower) lounge in The Wing was reputed to sport some gorgeous new rainforest showers. I, intrepid Trip Reporter, wanted to explore.
I got a very funny look from the staff when I showed up at the Wing’s Business Class lounge reception clutching a First Class boarding pass and lounge invitation. This was so like the reactions that I had gotten much through yesterday that I was wondering whether someone had called a staff meeting with my photo. I was gently told that I could use the First Class section upstairs but they relented when I told them I wanted to try out the new renovated showers. Actually relent is probably the wrong word. It was more like they laughed and waved me in. As in a “I can’t believe you’re mad enough to step foot in this crowded lounge with a view over a parking lot when you could be upstairs eating a restaurant-quality meal and being waited on hand and foot but if you want to do it then come right on in” laugh. In a nice way.
The new downstairs section is certainly much sleeker and warmer than the old grey granite scheme. And the showers! I wish I had them at home. Though I wouldn’t like to be paying the water bill for them.
Only one quibble. I’m not sure which numbskull designed the showers – someone famous, no doubt – but he must have a slave which turns the water on for him. Because the shower taps are located on the other side of the showerhead from the entryway. If there were instructions, they would read something like: 1/ Turn on taps. 2/Jump the hell back as soon as you turn on the tap to avoid being drenched by the shower coming on. There’s also no door to the shower stall. Which is not as bad as it sounds privacy wise, since there’s obviously a door and lock to the shower/bathroom cubicle itself; but my very firm suggestion to anyone using the showers in The Wing is to keep shoes and bags well back from the area to the entry to the shower. As I discovered, a combination of the excellent water pressure and the not so excellent drainage is that it’s rather easy to recreate the Great Flood outside of the main shower area.
I scuttled over on to The Cabin afterwards.
The Cabin was designed to be twinned with The Wing, so a lot of its features are complementary to, rather than a duplication of, The Wing. Thus, unlike The Wing, it has no showers. No noodle bar. And much faster internet.
The flagship food station in The Cabin is The Deli. Smoked salmon and salads, hot toasted sandwiches. And, my favourite feature, The Health Bar. Fresh squeezed juices. Seriously, why can one not get fresh watermelon juice in other countries with the ease that you can get it in Asia?
The Deli:
Normal buffet station with hot dishes and sandwiches:
Tables and chairs area for eating:
There are some group seating areas by the food and beverage bars, and windowside seating suitable for couples, but most of the lounge is taken up by the Cathay Solus chair, designed for the discerning individual business traveller. I was very sceptical about the idea and the design when I first saw the photos, but they really were very comfortable and not at all confining if pointed out towards a window. The inbuilt table might be a bit small if you were trying to balance laptop, papers and a tray of food, but I was happy as a clam with just my tray of smoked salmon, potato salad, watermelon juice and fresh fruit salad. Not that I know how we determine the happiness of clams.
I left a little early for a bit of a wander around the central concourse before the flight was called for boarding at gate 27. Another repeat gate. Another repeat plane. Boo hiss. Still, I did get to see the extent to which the CX machine works. The sole job of this agent was to stand at the top of the escalator, which feeds from the transit point downstairs, with two A4 pieces of paper. One piece reading Dubai (plus gate number) and the other piece reading Riyadh (plus gate number). Whenever the escalator spat someone out – invariably a female, non-Chinese who let’s face it fit the stereotype of a Southeast Asian domestic helper perfectly – the agent’s job was to stick the appropriate piece of paper in front of Transiting Passenger and point at the gate number written on it.
Fascinating, not least because I pondered how they even decided that such a position was necessary. Large number of misconnects from Southeast Asian flights to Middle Eastern ones? Lots of frantic trying to find missing connecting passengers who didn’t speak Chinese or English? The mind boggles.
Here’s a photo of the plane being catered with lots of delicious food. The Cathay livery really suits the elegant lines of the 747. And it’s a nice change from the pervasive Eurowhite.
A consequence of being up and about meant that I could sidle in line for the boarding queue a bit early, and got to be first on. Not so exciting was the fact they tore my boarding pass and left me with only the stub, a rarity in Hong Kong. It’s so much nicer to have the whole card for the collection.
We were 6 out of 9 for the short flight down to Bangkok. It was a strange bunch. Mr 1K hobbled to his seat and started demanding from the cabin crew the flight time to Bangkok, the layover time there and the flight time to Delhi. Mr 2K tossed his jandals into the aisle and was put out at the fact that the champagne was Deutz and wanted to know where the Krug was. Mr 3A started talking to the crew about night landing slots at Delhi.
In retrospect, one of these things should have tipped me off. We had a FlyerTalker amongst us! Well, another FlyerTalker. In addition to me. Obviously.
The champagne might have been Deutz but it had bubbles. It was cold. I was happy.
Takeoff. I don’t need to write about this. You can read the Wikipedia page about Bernoulli’s theory if you want to know the specifics.
The crew came round with the menus and immigration cards for Thailand. I took the opportunity to mention to the purser that I had yet to receive my onward boarding pass at Delhi and was wondering if she could pass a message to the ground staff there so I could have an easier transit.
Her: “Oh, where are you transiting to?”
Me: “Um... Hong Kong.”
Her: ....
Her: “But... aren’t we just leaving Hong Kong now?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: <light dawning as realisation sets in that yes there are people that crazy> “You’re just flying for a plane ride?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: “I feel really sorry for you!”
One of my friends has accused me of perhaps liking to bemuse airline staff a bit too much, and I have to say sometimes I think she may have a point.
Still, I told the purser that she shouldn’t feel sorry for me because I liked flying, loved Cathay and after all it wasn’t as if I was doing it in a hard shell 32 inch seat pitch down the back. As demonstrated by the food service for this sector, which was a full whack despite the flying time topping out at just over two hours. Don’t be fooled by the menu billing it as refreshment.
Refreshment
Starter
Lemon and olive oil prawns with mixed salad
Main Courses
Kung Po prawns with steamed jasmine rice, braised Chinese zucchini with fried garlic and dried shrimp
Gorsht korma, kesari pulao, khumb curry
Creamy lamb curry with saffron basmati rice and mushroom curry
Chana masala, matar pulao, paneer masala
Chick pea masala with pea basmati rice and cottage cheese masala
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Dessert
Yuzu and milk chocolate cake with pear compote
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
The meal service started later than I would have expected given the flying time, with about an hour to go, but the crew timed everything perfectly and I never felt rushed. The only service difference from a normal meal was that all of the cutlery came prewrapped in the napkin, rather than being laid separately for each course.
If anyone wants to do a type-of-bread-roll comparison between today and yesterday, I don’t want to deprive you.
Not, in my opinion, Catering’s best decision to have both a starter of prawns and a mains option of prawns. Nor my best decision to have both the starter of prawns and the mains of prawns. I really should have gone for the lamb curry; buyer’s regret which hit especially hard when opening the BKK-DEL menu and not liking either Indian option.
Once upon a time no one had ever heard of yuzu, and nowadays it pops up everywhere from dessert to yoghurt flavours.
Pralines were the same as yesterday. Right down to the exact quantities of the different types. Take my word for it.
Last report I took photos of the cabin. This report you get photos of the bathroom.
Now I’m not normally one to take pictures of bathrooms but these are pretty spectacular bathrooms for a plane. Proper sinks. Proper water pressure. And a great view. Who needs gold plating a la Royal Brunei when you can have two windows looking out over clear blue sky? (They come with opaque shades for when you’re on the ground).
Bangkok was threatening rain but we touched down at Suvarnabhumi (the pronunciation of which was massacred by the ISM on arrival) without the heavens breaking. I tried to see if I could pick out the terminal building sinking into the ground but either my eyesight wasn’t good enough or those who forgot to factor in the fact that they built the airport on a swamp have now managed to correct their oversight. This was a new airport for me, so it was slightly sad that I couldn’t pop inside to see whether the interior really was the soulless concrete cavern that everyone says it is, but it turned out that the hour and three quarters layover in BKK would be much less dull than I anticipated.
Last edited by Top of climb; Oct 7, 2011 at 4:23 am
Oct 7, 2011, 3:23 pm
#62
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Seattle
Programs: AS MVPG 75K
Posts: 2,574
Even though I vaguely know how to pronounce it I always just tell Taxi drivers that I'm headed for the new airport so as to not end up at Don Mueang *shudder*
Oct 8, 2011, 7:46 am
#64
Join Date: May 2011
Location: DFW
Programs: AA EXP, LT Gold
Posts: 3,148
Her: “Oh, where are you transiting to?”
Me: “Um... Hong Kong.”
Her: ....
Her: “But... aren’t we just leaving Hong Kong now?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: <light dawning as realisation sets in that yes there are people that crazy> “You’re just flying for a plane ride?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: “I feel really sorry for you!”
Me: “Um... Hong Kong.”
Her: ....
Her: “But... aren’t we just leaving Hong Kong now?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: <light dawning as realisation sets in that yes there are people that crazy> “You’re just flying for a plane ride?”
Me: “Well. Yes.”
Her: “I feel really sorry for you!”
^^
Oct 9, 2011, 8:13 am
#66
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Phuket
Programs: SQ *Gold, BA, QR, EY, Hilton Diamond, IHG Platinum, Marriott Gold, Amex Platinum
Posts: 5,270
Oct 10, 2011, 7:26 am
#68
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
Oct 10, 2011, 9:46 am
#69
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: HKG YYZ
Programs: Marco Polo Club
Posts: 523
I had also once pronounced it as written until my Thai friend gave me a lecture on the correct pronunciation of suwanna-poom. So i'm going along with that haha.
Oct 10, 2011, 10:06 am
#70
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Phuket
Programs: SQ *Gold, BA, QR, EY, Hilton Diamond, IHG Platinum, Marriott Gold, Amex Platinum
Posts: 5,270
Oct 11, 2011, 2:09 pm
#71
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
8b/16: Cx f (4)
CX751 BKK-DEL B744 (74A) B-HOS
Where’s the best place to hide a grain of sand?
On a beach.
Where’s the best place to hide a piece of hay?
In a haystack.
And where’s the most likely place you’d expect to find a Flyertalker?
Why, on a plane, of course.
Or maybe at an airport. Actually, the correct answer is probably at a DO. But leaving all that aside, because it ruins the story.
Once the plane had parked I got up with the rest of the three First pax that would be deplaning in Bangkok, just to have a stretch of the legs and a light wander around the cabin. I caught the eye of Mr 3A who had settled back quite comfortably with his FT (that’s Financial Times, not FlyerTalk) and, no doubt noticing I hadn’t grabbed my worldly belongings and started a stampede for the exit, surmised that I too was staying on board for the next leg.
Mr 3A: “Going to Delhi too?”
Me: “Yes.”
I pondered a bit whether or not to expand my answer and really confuse the poor guy, and decided why not. See comment about me in previous sector attributed to my friend. And also note that this is Fate Intervening Point Number 1.
Me: “Transiting, actually.”
Mr 3A: “Oh, where to?”
Again a ponder whether or not to answer truthfully, and then deciding I was committed.
Me: “Hong Kong, actually”. (Insert wry, self-deprecatory smile here).
Mr 3A: “You’re going to India and coming straight back?”
Me: “Yep.”
And then, a term I least expected came floating out of his mouth.
Mr 3A: “What, like on a mileage run or something?”
I was astounded. Who was this man in 3A, and why was he not as confused as all hell – like every one of my friends, family and airline staff I had encountered on this journey – about my routing? And, how did he know the term... mileage run?
Was he a FlyerTalker?
I’d already encountered one person on this trip who I thought was a FTer. The college guy in LAX. Who asked about bumps. I subtly tried scanning the area for his hand baggage. Maybe he had a FT tag. Then again, I had foolishly left my FT tags behind on my proper handcarry, not the light daypack I was using for my turns.
Me: “Well, yes, in fact.”
In short order we established each other’s handles (turns out he was ELITEGOLDTRAVELLER, as foreshadowed earlier), had a good laugh about the odds of meeting on board a stopover in Bangkok and were soon merrily chatting away. So merrily in fact that the rather sour Swiss in 1A, who I’m convinced spent most of the stopover counting down every second of it as against the stop time advised by the crew, came and asked us politely (but not nicely) to be quiet. You know the type. “Gentlemen, I don’t mind your conversation” (read: I clearly do), “but you are being rather loud”. Fair enough if we had been in flight, or he was trying to work, but with cleaners bustling around us and the old and new crews doing their changeover duty it wasn’t as if we were exactly interrupting tranquil sounds of silence.
During the stopover the new crew came up to introduce themselves and to offer beverages. The purser from the previous flight told me she’d mentioned my lack of boarding pass to the new crew for them to follow up on (cue a new set of “what on earth are you doing and why would you possibly want to do this”) set of faces. Amusingly the new Senior Purser tried to sign me up to the Marco Polo Club as the manifest wasn’t showing my QF number, and they thought it would be a shame if I flew all this way and didn’t collect any miles for it. The ISM also stopped by for a chat, and I think I can safely say that she left considerably more bemused than any other crew I’d encountered all journey, not only because she was dealing with mad me flying to Delhi and straight back but also another of her First Class passengers standing there chatting with me who not only was not flying to Delhi and straight back but nevertheless completely understood what I was doing and why.
It was quite interesting watching the crew changeover. Rather than a simple on/off swap as I’d imagined, there was a good 45 minutes where both sets of crew were on board, the old crew tidying up the cabin and passing off the plane to the new crew. It does however seem that one of the biggest headaches on these through flights is those passengers who simply do not know what the hell they are doing, or perhaps more accurately, where in hell they are going. Like the two passengers who decided they wanted to remain on board for the segment to Delhi and was chided by the outgoing ISM to “please deplane immediately”. The opposite problem to the one the Vancouver CX ground staff had when I flew JFK-YVR, and the announcement in the baggage hall was “if you are continuing on to Hong Kong please contact a ground staff member immediately to reboard your plane; this is Vancouver NOT Hong Kong!”
No flight deck crew change in Bangkok and we pushed back in rain for our 3 hour plus hop to Delhi. The crew came by to take drinks and meal orders. Everyone in the cabin opted to defer the meal to closer to landing than departure, not surprisingly given the meal that had been served on the HKG-BKK leg. They ran a nuts and drink round before dimming the cabin lights.
I’m not very good at poetry. Fact telling, I can do. Writing rude letters to people disguised as polite ones, I make a pretty good stab at. Sardonic wit, well, I’ll let you be the judge of that. But every time I try to describe something in a way that is supposed to evoke emotion, I usually end up writing something that wouldn’t manage to wring emotion from a [insert any airline who serves cold and hard bread rolls]. But I’m going to try anyway.
It had been a pretty hectic weekend. True, I had let myself in for most of it, dashing back and forth between the airport and hotel and flying just for the sake of flying. I was expecting to enjoy it. And I did. But I wasn’t expecting to find too many quiet moments of solitude. Unless it was Indian immigration locking me up in a room while they decided whether I was a security risk
But on board this sector I had one of those moments. Not the senile type of moments, where you think “gee, it would be fun to go on a mileage run”. But one of those very rare moments of absolute tranquillity, where you feel like you’re in your own little bubble. There’s no one else around. Just you and the world. For me, that came somewhere over Burma and continued all the way across the Bay of Bengal. True, somewhat modified, because I was sitting in a seat which apparently costs somewhere in the region of a high level sports car, but it was perhaps that, the dark cabin, good music on the AOD playlist, the different scenery slipping by outside, and the ever-changing gloss of the setting sun which all blended together to create, for a very brief time, a perfect period of serenity.
These are moments that don’t happen nearly enough.
The meal service commenced, at the time I’d requested, with the laying of some smaller than normal tablecloths. My quip to the purser asking whether they’d shrunk in the wash was met with an apology that BKK hadn’t loaded the F linen. Now what sort of compensation do you think I can get for midget tablecloths and interruption of my premium First experience? Business Class tablecloths in First! Quelle horreur! Or since this is a Cathay trip report, maybe we should revert to their home equivalent and simply say, "aiya!"
DINNER
Starters
Mesclun salad with grilled capsicum and Thai vinaigrette
Cream of onion soup
Main Courses
Palak gosht, kesari pulao, tarka dal
Lamb in spinach puree with saffron basmati rice and mixed lentil masala
Sea bass with preserved plum sauce, steamed jasmine rice and stir-fried baby asparagus and carrots
Kadai paneer, gucchi pulao, dal makhani
Cottage cheese with onion capsicum masala, morel basmati rice and creamy black lentils
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Cheese and Dessert
Brie, Gorgonzola, Edam, Emmenthal
Fresh seasonal fruit
Cranberry torte
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
The salad was fine, though if you were wondering what Thai vinaigrette is, I can’t answer, because there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of it. Note the presence of the fruit of evil, which was not flagged on the menu. It’s sneaky like that.
Onion seemed to me to be a slightly odd vegetable to cream (though maybe less than cream of choy sum), but what emerged from the galley just looked – and tasted – like plain old yummy onion soup to me.
Now, seriously, how can you top a meal backdrop like this?
ELITEGOLDTRAVELLER in 3A had mentioned to me before we left for Delhi that the catering was pretty good out of Bangkok. Actually he told me to load up on this flight because the catering out of DEL was rubbish, but he mentioned BKK catering too. The salad and soup were both good, but it was the bread basket that suggested he might be on to something. THE best garlic bread I have ever had. Piping hot, crunchy round the edges and soft in the centre and slathered with garlicky and buttery goodness. The crew offered, and I accepted, seconds of the bread basket, pig that I am.
A pictorial depiction of my Ode To BKK Catered Garlic Bread:
I have a plane-induced phobia about sea bass. For a while, a few years ago, it seemed like the only main that was ever being served about my flights. I had it so many times I was ready to lump it into the “I don’t want to eat this unless every other fish has been eaten by a whale” category.
Unfortunately, neither of the two alternative Indian mains options appealed so I reluctantly defaulted to the sea bass. It was fine without being amazing. I was surprised that they didn’t do the fresh steamed rice on this sector given they did it on the comparatively shorter HKG-BKK run, but perhaps CX have not a supplier of raw rice in BKK.
The vegetables on which the sea bass lay turned out to be rather resistant to heat pervasion. The crew didn’t skip a beat; they quickly offered to reheat a new serving for me when I told them.
I went for both the fruit and dessert because, well, I’m greedy.
The fruit plate was a disappointment. Catered out of Bangkok I was hoping for some nice mango, but instead half the plate was two tasteless wedges of dragonfruit (seriously, why do airlines even bother catering this pitiful excuse for a fruit? Every piece of dragonfruit I’ve ever eaten has tasted like a cross between water and microwaved frozen mashed potatoes not quite microwaved enough) and two foul wedges of solidified cat piss. Or papaya, if you want to use the scientific name for it.
Of course, if you happen to like dragonfruit and papaya, you’d have loved the fruit plate. I wish you’d been on my flight. I would have given it to you.
The dessert, however, made up for the fruit plate in spades. One of the best finishes to a meal I’ve ever had in the air.
On second thought, there are better ways to finish a meal. For example, with Bailey’s and pralines.
India requires the cabin to be sprayed prior to landing, much like New Zealand flights did about 15 years ago. As a child I was always well covered with a hanky over my nose and mouth and told to close my eyes tight when the crew member came through (I remember being amused at the fact that they would walk backwards up the cabin, though it’s odd the things you find amusing as a child for no good reason). Still, old habits die hard, so I fished out the hanky and prepared to screw my eyes right shut. However, the sprayers never made it up to the front cabin, presumably due to the F crew having a quiet word that 1A was still nibbling on his cheese and that the spray, although WHO approved, might not be the best accompaniment to Brie, Gorgonzola, Edam or Emmenthal.
It was full night by now, so it was a beautiful moonlit approach over the lights of Delhi as we swung around to line up with what I’m told is Delhi’s longest runway but of which over half is taken up with a takeoff-only run, meaning that as soon as we touched down our captain slammed on the brakes as if they were going out of fashion. As it stood we still ran the full length of the runway available to landing before swinging around and taxiing at a miserly tortoise pace towards the terminal. EGT put this time to good use by doing his best to persuade me to land in India proper for a drink (a happenstance which I assume from previous comments in this thread is not unknown to his FT brethren) and when that failed, happily predicting that my turnaround was probably currently causing the CX DEL airport team to have a psychological meltdown.
Next: navigating DEL T3 and getting an onward boarding pass. Would India be happy to let me through without landing? Had I caused havoc by showing up twice on CX DEL’s flight manifests for the night? Was doing a DEL turn one of the stupidest ideas of my life? Stay tuned.
Where’s the best place to hide a grain of sand?
On a beach.
Where’s the best place to hide a piece of hay?
In a haystack.
And where’s the most likely place you’d expect to find a Flyertalker?
Why, on a plane, of course.
Or maybe at an airport. Actually, the correct answer is probably at a DO. But leaving all that aside, because it ruins the story.
Once the plane had parked I got up with the rest of the three First pax that would be deplaning in Bangkok, just to have a stretch of the legs and a light wander around the cabin. I caught the eye of Mr 3A who had settled back quite comfortably with his FT (that’s Financial Times, not FlyerTalk) and, no doubt noticing I hadn’t grabbed my worldly belongings and started a stampede for the exit, surmised that I too was staying on board for the next leg.
Mr 3A: “Going to Delhi too?”
Me: “Yes.”
I pondered a bit whether or not to expand my answer and really confuse the poor guy, and decided why not. See comment about me in previous sector attributed to my friend. And also note that this is Fate Intervening Point Number 1.
Me: “Transiting, actually.”
Mr 3A: “Oh, where to?”
Again a ponder whether or not to answer truthfully, and then deciding I was committed.
Me: “Hong Kong, actually”. (Insert wry, self-deprecatory smile here).
Mr 3A: “You’re going to India and coming straight back?”
Me: “Yep.”
And then, a term I least expected came floating out of his mouth.
Mr 3A: “What, like on a mileage run or something?”
I was astounded. Who was this man in 3A, and why was he not as confused as all hell – like every one of my friends, family and airline staff I had encountered on this journey – about my routing? And, how did he know the term... mileage run?
Was he a FlyerTalker?
I’d already encountered one person on this trip who I thought was a FTer. The college guy in LAX. Who asked about bumps. I subtly tried scanning the area for his hand baggage. Maybe he had a FT tag. Then again, I had foolishly left my FT tags behind on my proper handcarry, not the light daypack I was using for my turns.
Me: “Well, yes, in fact.”
In short order we established each other’s handles (turns out he was ELITEGOLDTRAVELLER, as foreshadowed earlier), had a good laugh about the odds of meeting on board a stopover in Bangkok and were soon merrily chatting away. So merrily in fact that the rather sour Swiss in 1A, who I’m convinced spent most of the stopover counting down every second of it as against the stop time advised by the crew, came and asked us politely (but not nicely) to be quiet. You know the type. “Gentlemen, I don’t mind your conversation” (read: I clearly do), “but you are being rather loud”. Fair enough if we had been in flight, or he was trying to work, but with cleaners bustling around us and the old and new crews doing their changeover duty it wasn’t as if we were exactly interrupting tranquil sounds of silence.
During the stopover the new crew came up to introduce themselves and to offer beverages. The purser from the previous flight told me she’d mentioned my lack of boarding pass to the new crew for them to follow up on (cue a new set of “what on earth are you doing and why would you possibly want to do this”) set of faces. Amusingly the new Senior Purser tried to sign me up to the Marco Polo Club as the manifest wasn’t showing my QF number, and they thought it would be a shame if I flew all this way and didn’t collect any miles for it. The ISM also stopped by for a chat, and I think I can safely say that she left considerably more bemused than any other crew I’d encountered all journey, not only because she was dealing with mad me flying to Delhi and straight back but also another of her First Class passengers standing there chatting with me who not only was not flying to Delhi and straight back but nevertheless completely understood what I was doing and why.
It was quite interesting watching the crew changeover. Rather than a simple on/off swap as I’d imagined, there was a good 45 minutes where both sets of crew were on board, the old crew tidying up the cabin and passing off the plane to the new crew. It does however seem that one of the biggest headaches on these through flights is those passengers who simply do not know what the hell they are doing, or perhaps more accurately, where in hell they are going. Like the two passengers who decided they wanted to remain on board for the segment to Delhi and was chided by the outgoing ISM to “please deplane immediately”. The opposite problem to the one the Vancouver CX ground staff had when I flew JFK-YVR, and the announcement in the baggage hall was “if you are continuing on to Hong Kong please contact a ground staff member immediately to reboard your plane; this is Vancouver NOT Hong Kong!”
No flight deck crew change in Bangkok and we pushed back in rain for our 3 hour plus hop to Delhi. The crew came by to take drinks and meal orders. Everyone in the cabin opted to defer the meal to closer to landing than departure, not surprisingly given the meal that had been served on the HKG-BKK leg. They ran a nuts and drink round before dimming the cabin lights.
I’m not very good at poetry. Fact telling, I can do. Writing rude letters to people disguised as polite ones, I make a pretty good stab at. Sardonic wit, well, I’ll let you be the judge of that. But every time I try to describe something in a way that is supposed to evoke emotion, I usually end up writing something that wouldn’t manage to wring emotion from a [insert any airline who serves cold and hard bread rolls]. But I’m going to try anyway.
It had been a pretty hectic weekend. True, I had let myself in for most of it, dashing back and forth between the airport and hotel and flying just for the sake of flying. I was expecting to enjoy it. And I did. But I wasn’t expecting to find too many quiet moments of solitude. Unless it was Indian immigration locking me up in a room while they decided whether I was a security risk
But on board this sector I had one of those moments. Not the senile type of moments, where you think “gee, it would be fun to go on a mileage run”. But one of those very rare moments of absolute tranquillity, where you feel like you’re in your own little bubble. There’s no one else around. Just you and the world. For me, that came somewhere over Burma and continued all the way across the Bay of Bengal. True, somewhat modified, because I was sitting in a seat which apparently costs somewhere in the region of a high level sports car, but it was perhaps that, the dark cabin, good music on the AOD playlist, the different scenery slipping by outside, and the ever-changing gloss of the setting sun which all blended together to create, for a very brief time, a perfect period of serenity.
These are moments that don’t happen nearly enough.
The meal service commenced, at the time I’d requested, with the laying of some smaller than normal tablecloths. My quip to the purser asking whether they’d shrunk in the wash was met with an apology that BKK hadn’t loaded the F linen. Now what sort of compensation do you think I can get for midget tablecloths and interruption of my premium First experience? Business Class tablecloths in First! Quelle horreur! Or since this is a Cathay trip report, maybe we should revert to their home equivalent and simply say, "aiya!"
DINNER
Starters
Mesclun salad with grilled capsicum and Thai vinaigrette
Cream of onion soup
Main Courses
Palak gosht, kesari pulao, tarka dal
Lamb in spinach puree with saffron basmati rice and mixed lentil masala
Sea bass with preserved plum sauce, steamed jasmine rice and stir-fried baby asparagus and carrots
Kadai paneer, gucchi pulao, dal makhani
Cottage cheese with onion capsicum masala, morel basmati rice and creamy black lentils
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Cheese and Dessert
Brie, Gorgonzola, Edam, Emmenthal
Fresh seasonal fruit
Cranberry torte
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
The salad was fine, though if you were wondering what Thai vinaigrette is, I can’t answer, because there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of it. Note the presence of the fruit of evil, which was not flagged on the menu. It’s sneaky like that.
Onion seemed to me to be a slightly odd vegetable to cream (though maybe less than cream of choy sum), but what emerged from the galley just looked – and tasted – like plain old yummy onion soup to me.
Now, seriously, how can you top a meal backdrop like this?
ELITEGOLDTRAVELLER in 3A had mentioned to me before we left for Delhi that the catering was pretty good out of Bangkok. Actually he told me to load up on this flight because the catering out of DEL was rubbish, but he mentioned BKK catering too. The salad and soup were both good, but it was the bread basket that suggested he might be on to something. THE best garlic bread I have ever had. Piping hot, crunchy round the edges and soft in the centre and slathered with garlicky and buttery goodness. The crew offered, and I accepted, seconds of the bread basket, pig that I am.
A pictorial depiction of my Ode To BKK Catered Garlic Bread:
I have a plane-induced phobia about sea bass. For a while, a few years ago, it seemed like the only main that was ever being served about my flights. I had it so many times I was ready to lump it into the “I don’t want to eat this unless every other fish has been eaten by a whale” category.
Unfortunately, neither of the two alternative Indian mains options appealed so I reluctantly defaulted to the sea bass. It was fine without being amazing. I was surprised that they didn’t do the fresh steamed rice on this sector given they did it on the comparatively shorter HKG-BKK run, but perhaps CX have not a supplier of raw rice in BKK.
The vegetables on which the sea bass lay turned out to be rather resistant to heat pervasion. The crew didn’t skip a beat; they quickly offered to reheat a new serving for me when I told them.
I went for both the fruit and dessert because, well, I’m greedy.
The fruit plate was a disappointment. Catered out of Bangkok I was hoping for some nice mango, but instead half the plate was two tasteless wedges of dragonfruit (seriously, why do airlines even bother catering this pitiful excuse for a fruit? Every piece of dragonfruit I’ve ever eaten has tasted like a cross between water and microwaved frozen mashed potatoes not quite microwaved enough) and two foul wedges of solidified cat piss. Or papaya, if you want to use the scientific name for it.
Of course, if you happen to like dragonfruit and papaya, you’d have loved the fruit plate. I wish you’d been on my flight. I would have given it to you.
The dessert, however, made up for the fruit plate in spades. One of the best finishes to a meal I’ve ever had in the air.
On second thought, there are better ways to finish a meal. For example, with Bailey’s and pralines.
India requires the cabin to be sprayed prior to landing, much like New Zealand flights did about 15 years ago. As a child I was always well covered with a hanky over my nose and mouth and told to close my eyes tight when the crew member came through (I remember being amused at the fact that they would walk backwards up the cabin, though it’s odd the things you find amusing as a child for no good reason). Still, old habits die hard, so I fished out the hanky and prepared to screw my eyes right shut. However, the sprayers never made it up to the front cabin, presumably due to the F crew having a quiet word that 1A was still nibbling on his cheese and that the spray, although WHO approved, might not be the best accompaniment to Brie, Gorgonzola, Edam or Emmenthal.
It was full night by now, so it was a beautiful moonlit approach over the lights of Delhi as we swung around to line up with what I’m told is Delhi’s longest runway but of which over half is taken up with a takeoff-only run, meaning that as soon as we touched down our captain slammed on the brakes as if they were going out of fashion. As it stood we still ran the full length of the runway available to landing before swinging around and taxiing at a miserly tortoise pace towards the terminal. EGT put this time to good use by doing his best to persuade me to land in India proper for a drink (a happenstance which I assume from previous comments in this thread is not unknown to his FT brethren) and when that failed, happily predicting that my turnaround was probably currently causing the CX DEL airport team to have a psychological meltdown.
Next: navigating DEL T3 and getting an onward boarding pass. Would India be happy to let me through without landing? Had I caused havoc by showing up twice on CX DEL’s flight manifests for the night? Was doing a DEL turn one of the stupidest ideas of my life? Stay tuned.
Last edited by Top of climb; Oct 11, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Oct 12, 2011, 6:02 am
#72
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: OSL
Programs: BA Gold | SK Gold | A3 Gold
Posts: 4,553
You know, about 4 years ago I did an international transit at DEL. It was at the old airport, on a lesser airline. But no one had any clue what I should do or where I should go. They'd never seen a passenger in transit before (or so it seemed), which led to much pain and suffering on my part. I wasn't an FTer then, so I was equally confused (or perhaps just naive enough to believe them), but I did eventually decide I would never do something like this again. Having said that, I'm doing exactly that in a couple of weeks. 
Oct 12, 2011, 8:25 am
#73
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: LAS
Programs: DL PM, UA PS, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 4,904
But on board this sector I had one of those moments. Not the senile type of moments, where you think “gee, it would be fun to go on a mileage run”. But one of those very rare moments of absolute tranquillity, where you feel like you’re in your own little bubble. There’s no one else around. Just you and the world. For me, that came somewhere over Burma and continued all the way across the Bay of Bengal. True, somewhat modified, because I was sitting in a seat which apparently costs somewhere in the region of a high level sports car, but it was perhaps that, the dark cabin, good music on the AOD playlist, the different scenery slipping by outside, and the ever-changing gloss of the setting sun which all blended together to create, for a very brief time, a perfect period of serenity.
These are moments that don’t happen nearly enough.
These are moments that don’t happen nearly enough.
It was full night by now, so it was a beautiful moonlit approach over the lights of Delhi as we swung around to line up with what I’m told is Delhi’s longest runway but of which over half is taken up with a takeoff-only run, meaning that as soon as we touched down our captain slammed on the brakes as if they were going out of fashion. As it stood we still ran the full length of the runway available to landing before swinging around and taxiing at a miserly tortoise pace towards the terminal.
Oct 12, 2011, 10:18 am
#74
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Seattle
Programs: AS MVPG 75K
Posts: 2,574
You know, about 4 years ago I did an international transit at DEL. It was at the old airport, on a lesser airline. But no one had any clue what I should do or where I should go. They'd never seen a passenger in transit before (or so it seemed), which led to much pain and suffering on my part. I wasn't an FTer then, so I was equally confused (or perhaps just naive enough to believe them), but I did eventually decide I would never do something like this again. Having said that, I'm doing exactly that in a couple of weeks.