Arrival into Hong Kong was fairly short and we pulled up onto gate 63 slightly ahead of schedule. After my cockpit visit, it was time to head through the transfer point to await my flight to Auckland. At this point, the journey came off the rails a bit.
After turning up at transfer point W1, the queue was out of the door past the BP check and down the corridor towards the gates. After shuffling slowly through to the BP checkpoint, it became obvious why the queue was moving so slowly. HKIA must have taken lessons from BAA in security checkpoints, because they only had 1 scanner open. As we inched our way slowly forwards through the queue, after about 20 minutes, they opened a second scanner and the queue seemed to move forwards with more speed. After clearing security, I headed up into the departure lounge and knowing that my onwards flight was from gate 3, set about walking the entire length of the terminal to get to the gate.
The nice feature of HKG is that the wall to ceiling windows allows you to see the movements on the tarmac and all the ramp activity. Better than T3 at LHR which expects you to stay in the shopping centre until your flight is called and then herd you into the holding pen prior to boarding. Walking down the terminal I was able to get some shots of the 2 BA 747's parked up on remote stands, including the one in OneWorld livery, as well as the Virgin A340.
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Walking down through the terminal, I switched my phone on for the first time in nearly 13 hours. It was then that I got some of the worst news imaginable. I received a text message from one of my friends, telling me about the untimely death of one of my other friends. Nothing like a blow to the senses at the start of the holiday. After numerous phone calls and messenger conversations with the UK to find out what had happened and what was going on, the time seemed to fly by and I was still in a bit of a daze when boarding for the flight was announced.
Flight: CX 107 HKG-AKL
Aircraft: A340-300 (34D)
Seat: 65G
Scheduled departure: 2105
Pushback: 2115
Takeoff: 2130
Once onboard the flight, I settled into my seat at the back of the plane at the row where it changes from 2-4-2 to 2-3-2 seating. This being a good seat on the 34D aircraft as I could stretch my feet out under the seat in front without the IFE box getting in the way and also have access to the aisle.
What did make me, and my seatmate laugh was the fact that the aircraft was obviously showing its age, and the armrest between us had to be attached to the seat using gaffa tape.
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Pushback was delayed as 2 passengers coming from connecting flights didn’t make it in time for our flight and so we had to wait for their baggage to be offloaded. Whilst we were waiting for pushback, I was talking to my seatmate who had been on the
SQ A380 which had had to turn back to Paris the day before after “one of the engines blew up”. He was one of the lucky ones getting a direct reroute home. Some other passengers were apparently being routed CDG-HKG-MEL-SYD-AKL. During the taxi, there were requests from some passengers to move seats so that they could sit with other family members. They were told that they could do this once the seatbelt sign was switched off. After the takeoff roll, when the crew were released but the seatbelt sign was still on, the musical chairs in the cabin began. It appeared that half the cabin were taking part in the musical chairs game and to only stopped when the cabin crew came rushing through the cabin shouting at people to sit down and put their seatbelts on, although this was ignored.
After the meal service, which was the only meal I didn’t snap a photo of, the blinds were closed again and the lights were dimmed for people to sleep. Not being a great sleeper while travelling, I thought that I would check out the broadcast IFE. Unfortunately, the screen was not in a decent position for me to watch anything and the picture quality was really fuzzy. Instead I headed down to the rear galley and spent a couple of hours chatting to the crew before they headed off for their crew rest leaving one poor girl to look after the entire cabin. This flight attendant was outstanding, she was struggling with the duty free sales as it was only the second time that she had done it as well as looking after the cabin. While she was doing this she was also talking to me and was really friendly. When the crew changed over and she went for her rest, I asked for a comment form and the purser thought that I had an problem with the service. When I explained that I wanted to pass on a compliment, her face changed and she became really friendly and proceeded to provide the form for me to fill in. The form was obviously read by the purser and ISM as after the breakfast service I was visited by the ISM and the crew member in person thanking me for the comments. A nice touch I thought.
After daybreak over Australia I thought that we were nearly in New Zealand until I looked at the time remaining on the moving map to find that we were still over 5 hours away. I never realised exactly how big Australia was until we flew over the top corner. Breakfast was served as we flew over the Tasman sea and this time the omelette was much better.
Arrival into Auckland was on time with us pulling onto gate 10 necessitating a power walk through to immigration and baggage reclaim. However, I was quickly through immigration and 5 minutes later was picking up my checked baggage. Going through the bio-security checkpoint, I had a slight grilling from the agent as I had a supply of food in my bags, had been camping and visited an abattoir. This, didn't seem to cause them any problems given my answers to their questions and it was then just a short wait to get through the x-ray and out into the sunlight of Auckland where I was met by waiting family.
Coming up, a few trips around New Zealand and the return to London.