AN*G-BNE

BLR-BKK
TG326 Airbus 330-300

I had been waitlisted on the flight a day later for nearly a week now, with no luck. Eventually I cancelled the waitlist and booked myself a Bangkok hotel for the night. It has only struck me now that TG has a guaranteed economy seat for their TG*G members booked in Y, B or M, which I was. I'm now kicking myself for not asking for that guarantee.

The day before, I had checked ExpertFlyer again to see what the loads were like. Again, looking good for an op-up, with all economy classes closed for waitlisting, and business showing 4 in all sub-classes. Then, the on-line check-in. Yes! Definitely well oversold in Y, as the magical “C” was already showing in the Class field of the on-line check-in. Another op-up. This is obviously a good route for *Gs to fly at this time of the year. C was also showing the new 330 configuration, with only 6 rows of C – the new plane again.

After a long few days of meetings, it was time to head back to the airport. I wasn't looking forward to the wait at the airport, as I had already checked out of my hotel before the day's meetings, and was travelling from my last meeting straight to the airport. Thus, even allowing for Bangalore traffic, I expected to be at the airport around 6pm, and I knew TG check-in would not open until 9pm (3 hrs 30 mins before ETD). Fortunately (if you can call it fortunate), traffic was even worse than what I was told was normal, and it wasn't until 6.35pm that we pulled into the airport.

BLR has only 1 terminal, shared between international and domestic, with shared check-in facilities, and just some partitions separating international immigration from the domestic gates. Approaching the terminal, the security lady looked at my itinerary and asked if I really wanted to go into the terminal so early, as I would not be allowed out once I had gone in. So, I asked what the options were. Well, she said, I could either stand out on the footpath and wait in the cold and drizzle (or what passes for cold in Bangalore anyway), or go in and either sit down in the check-in area or go up to the shops in the domestic part of the terminal). Hmmm... tough choice there.

Inside, the board was already showing the TG flight as checking in at counters 26-31. I walked around aimlessly, looked through a few shops, had a snack, found somewhere near a power point and caught up on email and FT, watched the check-in counters and the passengers and repeated the whole process several times. I started a new game of “pick the destination” - watch the passengers come in to the terminal, and pick where they are flying to (by seeing which check-in counter they went to). Given that there were only about 5 departing flights, my success rate of about 25% told me that I'd never make a detective. A young Swiss lass sitting next to me in the check-in area was most bemused by my game, and was much more successful, getting well over half right (I found out that she was an FT lurker, so if you're reading this, hi, and hope you've found a new way of passing time in airports). Also got my bags shrink-wrapped again.

At around 8.50pm, I noticed some action. About 8 check-in agents appeared to stand in a team bonding huddle right in front of those counters. It almost looked like they were about to run on to a playoff match instead of opening a flight for check-in. Maybe discussing strategies to deal with passengers insisting on upgrades, or passengers with 45kg of carry-ons? A team of about 6 airport staff started re-setting up those moveable barriers, to reconfigure the counters from a N-N (N queues for N counters) Kingfisher check-in to a single long winding queue for economy, and a single straight queue for business. Another staff came with the normal purple Royal Silk carpet in a wheelbarrow and promptly laid it out.

Whatever team strategies they were discussing, it must have been complex, because only 20 minutes later, at 9.10pm, did they move behind their counters. Interestingly enough, it looks like the displays above each counter indicating the purpose are controlled locally. Thus, as each IT (Kingfisher) agent signed off, the screen reverted to a default “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” message, and as each generic BATS (I assume Bangalore Airport Terminal Services?) agent signed on for that flight, the TG screen came on. 1 Group check-in counter, 3 Economy counters, and 2 Royal Silk counters. Their logic defeats me here. Do we really need 2 business counters for processing not more than 36 passengers, even if fully loaded which it clearly wasn't, and 3 counters to handle the remaining 263 passengers?

They opened up the economy queue, which started to build up quite quickly. However, the stretchy tape thing (I must find out the real name for those dynamically reconfigurable queuing devices) still kept the business lines shut, even though there were 2 agents there at those counters. After a couple of minutes of waiting, I gave up, and walked over to the agent guarding the queue (she checked the itinerary of everyone going into the queue) and asked when the business check-in would open. She immediately called another agent who was standing by the side chatting over, said something sharp to him and looked like she was going to cuff him round the ears, who immediately opened up the business queue looking very sheepish. Straight in, got my boarding pass, and up through immigration and security. The wait at immigration was long – not that there was anyone in the queue, but the immigration officer was being trained, and apparently, I was their first Australian and so, all the security features of the Australian passport were pointed out to him in excruciating detail and compared against “the book”.

Once past that, in to look for the Oberoi Lounge (contract lounge used by everyone) and in I went. Not very well signposted, so I walked straight past in, but another passenger guided me in – it's tucked away behind the Sports Bar. Wifi Internet is available, but you've got to register with your passport, and you get given a one use, one hour login. The lounge was reasonably quiet, and once the SQ flight boarded, almost deserted. Ok, further evidence that business was going to be quite empty.

Just as boarding was called, the lounge attendant came round to get the TG passengers, and 2 of us went off to the boarding gate. No priority line was in place, and there was one long queue of passengers. Resigning myself to a long wait, the lounge attendant called out to one of the gate agents, “business” - and the gate agent came to take us through to the front of the line. However, once through, there was a second line. Secondary security screening – a hand check of our carry-ons, a frisk and a wand-down. Again, the queue controller saw the business boarding pass and came to take me (and I assume the other business passenger from the lounge later) through to the next available security checker, and then, it was on-board.

Another equipment switcheroo! This time, from the new config when I checked in, to the old config with the really old recliner chairs. Never mind. Still beats economy. Business started to fill up quickly though, with people who hadn't been in the lounge. I'm guessing that they were also op-ups, and perhaps not being *G, weren't given lounge access to minimise the costs of paying the contract lounge? Even though there were 7 rows of 6 in business, the last 2 rows were blocked off, so that only 30 seats were available. When the doors closed, 18 of those seats were filled, and at least 3 of those I noticed still had economy boarding passes with a handwritten seat number change.

Not long after, the purser escorted another 2 passengers up, apologising for the seat change, but saying he was sure they'd be comfortable here. Very much so an oversold situation in Y. Because it was nearly 1am when we pushed back, I went straight to sleep from when the seat belt signs went off, to when descent was announced.

Sadly, we parked at E9, the furthest gate from anywhere, but a brisk walk ensured that I'd be first at immigration. No line, bored looking officers, and it was off to baggage claim, passing a young couple sleeping on the floor. Why would you sleep in the baggage claim area? Anyone have any ideas? It took ages for bags to start coming out again, this time, close to 30 minutes. Quite poor, I thought, given it was 5.30am, and no other flights were landing. BKK baggage seems to be having problems at the moment. However, by that time, there were only about 4 of us waiting for bags – I wondered why, until I realised that Indian nationals needed to get Visas on arrival to Thailand, thus slowing them down. Maybe they intentionally delay the baggage processing for that reason? Anyhow, mine was first bag out, and because the shrink wrap had caught on the wheels, I spent 2-3 minutes there fixing that problem. In all that time, no other bags came out – don't know if mine was the only priority bag?

Off into Bangkok city this time, since I had a day and a half in transit due to my BLR-BKK waitlist not clearing.