At the gate I asked if first class seating was available for this flight, and was told that FC was closed off. About five minutes later, one of the gate agents hunted me down in the gate area and said that as long as I was okay with a non-window seat, then they could offer me a seat in First. I wasn’t going to say no to that – I figured at the time that I’d try the F seat on the way out, and the C seat on the way back, to maximize my breadth of experience.

hastily edited boarding pass!

The service on this flight was absolutely outstanding. I’ve read often that TG can be hit or miss, but this was up there with the best I’ve ever experienced. I genuinely felt as if I was really special, and travelling in first class – neither of which was true!

The seat itself was not as exciting as I perhaps anticipated, though when in full flat mode, it was clearly comfortable enough for a solid sleep.

F seat on the A346

Seat Controls - the moving ottoman is a nice touch

The highlight for me was the table – I had no idea in advance that I’d be dining on the biggest table in the sky. The food itself was a little disappointing – though I suspect that was because the nature of the service raised my expectations a bit too much.

table for two, service for one!

this picture of the main course (fish) was a real effort to take as the A340 was flopping around like a fish out of water!

dessert

This was my first experience on the A340-600 and the one thing that I did notice was that I had never felt an airframe shake so much during what didn’t seem like major turbulence. I put that down to being sleepy, but a CX pilot I know later told me that the A346 really doesn’t handle turbulence as well as most others. Something to note if you don’t like shaking at 35,000 feet!

my orchids