b777er

After 5 days of fun, it was time to return home. As mentioned earlier, as I was travelling on a stand-by ticket, I called SQ’s office in Hong Kong to enquire about today’s load on SQ 865. Luckily, there were still 6 seats available in economy. I left for the airport at 4pm from the hotel at Kowloon by the airport bus, which is considerable much cheaper than the train (HK$33 vs HK$90) with only little time difference and it is also much more convenient as the bus stop is right at the hotel’s doorstep. My friends will be leaving later as their UA flight will only depart at 8pm.

27/12/2004
Hong Kong – Singapore
SQ 865
B747-400 9V-SPD
STD: 1830
STA: 2215
Departure Gate: 1
Arrival Gate: F50

Arrived at Chep Lap Kok airport at around 1645 and found SQ’s check-in counters at Area D easily. The earlier flight, SQ 861, had just left gate 22. I was surprised to find only quite few people checking in for a relatively full flight. Upon check-in, I was told that due to the high load factor, all window and aisle seats have already been taken and I was allocated seat 46F, a middle seat in the middle row of the plane . After checking-in, which took less than 5 minutes, I wandered around the departure area. However, there is no viewing gallery of any kind in the departure hall and the only way one can see planes is to go through immigration. Therefore, I immediately went through immigration, which was painless and as efficient as Changi.

This was my first time at the new Hong Kong airport (the previous time when I visited HK was 9 years ago when Kai Tak was still in use). Comparing to Changi, Hong Kong’s airport offers grander architecture with, more space and much more natural lighting. However, the facilities pale in comparison to Changi. Changi is more of a transit traveler haven with more shops, eateries, seats , entertainment facilities etc as compared to Hong Kong. In fact, Changi is more like a shopping mall than an airport. Also, comparing the departure monitors, it seems that Hong Kong has less flights departing in the evening compared to Changi. Wandered around and took some photos of planes, the more interesting ones mainly AC A345, Ethiopian Airlines B767 and some Chinese airliners. Also I saw my flight arriving into the gate. All arrivals are on 25R while departures on 25L. It seems that SQ allocates gates for their flights which are quite near immigration, with gate 1 the nearest from immigration. With 15 minutes still boarding, I just hanged around the gate area as there are not many interesting aircraft movements and also due to the hazy weather, it made spotting difficult. At exactly half and hour before departure, the announcement was made for boarding. Boarding was done by rows with first, raffles and PPS passengers having their own boarding entrance with economy using another. Boarding was very orderly with all passengers forming one line at the entrance. This flight is also code-shared with Air Canada. One interesting thing to note is that the gate agent, after processing the boarding pass, will greet everyone by name.

At the aircraft door, I grabbed a copy of newspaper which is available on a trolley before entering the aircraft. Was greeted by a leading stewardess and directed to the opposite aisle to my seat. Wow, this is really a packed flight as I did nor really see any empty seats. My seat mates are already in the seats, with an elderly couple on my left and a Hong Konger lady on my right. Stored my backpack and some food that I have bought into the overhead bin. I really hate the B747-400s, not because of the plane itself, but because of the extremely cramped economy seats that SQ had installed (I am 1.8m tall). A crew friend of mine also complained about the cramp seats in the B744s as many passengers have mentioned about it as compared to the B777s. Why would the B747s have less seat pitch than the B777s when the B747s are mainly used on long-haul routes?? Luckily this flight is only 3 hours long but I really dread the flight to London I may be making next July on SQ. Is the A380 up and running then? However Wiseman3000 entertainment system made up for it.

Soon, boarding was completed and doors were closed 5 minutes early. Hot towels were also offered and safety video played. On this flight, the stewardesses were not as pretty L as the incoming flight I have taken but I am sure they should be one of the best on many other airlines. However, of special mention is one stewardess from China serving my aisle who offered outstanding service. She was smiling radiantly throughout the whole flight and made small talks with many passengers, be it Caucasians or Asians. She was also very hardworking, constantly walking up and down the aisle during the flight helping passengers with their requests. There were 2 stewardesses from China on this flight.

After push-back, we made a short taxi to the runway. A short hold was made for a Dragonair A320 to depart before our turn. Engines were spooled up and we rolled down the runway, lifting off very shortly due to the low fuel load. Our flight route will take us out towards the South China Sea, turning towards Vietnam and flying through the south eastern part of Vietnam before going straight towards Tioman before descending to Singapore. This looks like the standard flight route from Hong Kong to Singapore, which is slightly more northernly than the flight up to Hong Kong. We cruised at 11000m (35000 feet?) and apart from some slight turbulence at the beginning of the flight, it was generally smooth throughout. After the seatbelt signs were switched off, headphones and menus were handed out. The dinner offerings are as follows:

Dinner from Hong Kong to Singapore
International Selection

Ham with creamy potato salad

Fish fillet in white wine sauce, carrots, sautéed spinach and steamed potatoes
(Exclusively created by Georges Blanc, Vonnas)

Cheese and crackers

Ice-cream

Roll and butter

Coffee-Tea

Oriental Selection

Marinated prawns with shredded cabbages and sesame cream dressing

Wok fried chicken with capsicums in preserved bean sauce served with Chinese green and chicken flavored rice

Chinese snack

Ice-cream

Roll and butter

Chinese Tea

First, a bar service was conducted with packets of mixed nuts served. However drinks were served from trays and not carts. Had a Tiger beer to go with my nuts. 2 rounds of drinks were served before the commencement of the dinner service. As it quite a full flight, it took some time before the cart reach my row of seats. By that time, the international selection was gone and only the oriental selection was left. I had intended to choose the international selection . The meal was fine but nothing special. The Chinese snack served was a type of onion cracker and the ice-cream was Haagan Daze chocolate flavor. Along with the meal, there were 3 or 4 (or maybe more?) drink services (lost count of the exact number but it was surely much more than my incoming flight). I continued with the Chinese comedy that I watched partly on the previous flight (Ah…, the bliss of AVOD!! ^ ) and also watched half of “The Princess Diaries 2”. After the meal trays were collected, we only had slightly more than 40 minutes left of our flight and so a quick visit to the toilet follows. I was surprised when I saw a stewardess cleaning the toilets and refilling the toiletries and amenities when we were so close to our destination!! No wonder toilets are always sparkling clean on SQ ^ .

Descend started around Tioman and an arrival video was shown. Then, headphones are collected when the cabin crew prepare for landing. We will be landing on runway 02L tonight. Due to traffic, our approach took us out over Batam and Bintam towards the Riau islands before turning back for final approach. This is much longer than the normal approach path taken. The approach is quite unstable as the wings were constantly moving up and down, maybe due to strong winds which is common at this time of the year. However, touch down is very smooth with idle reverse used. My last 3 flights on B744s and all B777s flights into Changi do not use reversers at all. Is it some new regulations are just my luck because reversers are used on some of my B777 flights to other airports?
Exited the runway by the first high-speed exit and had a long taxi to gate F50, crossing the airport highway in the process. We landed 10 minutes early tonight. The plane will be operating to Zurich and Manchester later in the evening as SQ 326. After I disembarked and proceeded to immigration, I saw that the whole immigration hall was extremely crowded, a first. It seems that 4 SQ flights had landed at around the same time, with other flights from Bangkok, Shanghai and Manila. After quite a long wait through immigration, I collected my luggage, which is already on the carousel. Interesting, the pilots on our flight, unlike the cabin crew, did not operate the flight as a turnaround. In fact, they had previously operated SQ 1 from San Francisco and laid over in Hong Kong before operating SQ 865 back to Singapore (judging by their crew baggage tags which I saw). Am curious to why their operating pattern is different to the cabin crew. Thus ended my last flight of 2004. Hope you enjoyed reading and any comments are welcomed. My next flights may be in July in 2005 when I may go to London to visit some friends as well as a continuing trip to Amsterdam (maybe my first time on a low-cost carrier).

Some pictures are available at http://community.webshots.com/user/b777er

For those of you interested in the menu for SQ 866, it is as follows:

Lunch from Hong Kong to Singapore
International Selection

Assorted seafood terrine with tomato. Mustard dill dressing

Cajun spiced pork served with tomato coulis, roasted vegetables and mashed potato

Cheese and crackers

Ice-cream

Roll and butter

Coffee-Tea

Oriental Selection

Fish rolled in beancurd skin with tomato salad. Sweet chilli sauce.

Ah Yat style baked chicken in oriental wasabi sauce, seasonal vegetable and fagrant rice
(Exclusively created by Yeung Koon Yat of Forum Restaurant, Hong Kong)

Chinese snack

Ice-cream

Roll and butter

Chinese Tea

Fliar

Thanks for the report! ^

ORDnHKG

The reason SQ flights depart quite near immigration is because if you know the SQ lounge is located extremely close to the immigration too, so that it makes convenience to passengers visit the SQ lounge.

SQ and CX have really cramped legroom in economy, so do JL and NH. I really enjoy their PTV, but all of them have bigger than noraml PTV, and with closer than noraml legroom. If I watch the PTV too long, I will get dizzy. I would say UA E+ on the 3 class 767 and 3 class 777 have the most proportion have smaller PTV and a 35" legroom.