A new year has started and due to some work commitments, I had postponed my earlier planned New Year in Taiwan to mid-Jan. This would be a 6-days trip to both Taichung and Taipei, with the outbound on Jetstar and return via SQ J-Class. Taiwan is a very popular destination for us Singaporeans, with nice weather and scenery, friendly locals, great food and favourable currency exchange (aka value-for-money!).
08 January 2015
Jetstar Asia
3k 721
Singapore (SIN) - Taipei Taoyuan (TPE)
A320
9V-JSI
Budget Class
On the day of departure, we reached arrived at Changi T1 at an ungodly 6am for our 710am departure. Having checked-in online prior, we just needed to drop our bags, but Jetstar's online check-in counters were not manned and the normal counters had snaking queues. However, I realised that Jetstar has started trial on a self-check-in (Step 1) and baggage-drop (Step 2) system and thus used them. Being real unfamiliar with the system, we actually took a while, with the assistance of a Jetstar staff, to self-print our boarding passes and baggage tags, tagged our bags and sent them on their way. In fact we were one of the only few pax using the self-bag-drop as everyone else were unfamiliar with it and apparently half the bag-drop machines were down and waiting for maintenance that morning.... Well, still beats queuing up at the counters and our bags made it to TPE.
Self check-in system printed boarding pass on a slip of paper instead of the traditional type.
Immigration was no hassles, we grabbed a coffee, and proceeded to the gate where boarding has already commenced. Today, our gate was at D46. The flight was actually bound for Osaka via Taipei, but almost all passengers were bound for TPE on this sector. I counted only 4-5 passengers continuing to Osaka from Taipei. Guess most KIX pax originated from TPE, as it must be very painful to fly almost 8hrs on this cramped A320 all the way from SIN.
Sun rising over the horizon as our A320, 9V-JSI, awaits for the day's trip up to Osaka and back via Taipei.
Topped up our water bottles at the gate's drinking fountains (drinking water is chargeable onboard) and proceeded to board. Was warmly welcomed at the door and proceeded to our seats at 20A/C, with 20B remaining empty, luckily. the flight was about 70% full. Initially, I was afraid that this aircraft was fitted with the horrible non-reclinable seats, but apparently Jetstar as scrapped it and refitted the aircraft with normal well-padded reclinable leather seats, albeit with very little recline and horrible legroom. Unfortunately, this aircraft was not fitted with the latest seats which, though less well-padded, offers more generous legroom and recline and is almost similar to what Silkair uses on their new B738s.
View our the window.
Really tight seat pitch. It is even worse from Rows 24 and above. Really salute those pax who survived 8hrs to Osaka in these seats!
Seat Pocket contents.
4 cabin crew on this flight, including a Japanese crew member. All passengers boarded promptly and we were ready to go. However there was some issues with the flight attendant's control monitor which needed some rectification from the engineers, which resulted in a 30min delay. However, the pilot repeatedly assured us that it was a minor problem and the plane is perfectly safe to fly. Also, we would make up considerable time as the flight would be a short 4h10m.
Finally, we pushed back after the problem was fixed, only to be slightly delayed again while holding for a TR plane to be pushed back.
Pushed back.
Taxiing out. Didn't know Jetstar still has an A330 based in SIN since they have scrapped all but MEL for its A330 routes out of SIN.
In order to save some time, we took off from 3/4 down the runway 02C instead of taxiing right to the end. Guess the A320 would not need the entire 4km long runway to get airbourne. Took off at 0752am, 42min behind schedule.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6arD-VqJQs
Climbing out over Malaysia.
Post-takeoff announcements and cabin view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru9SCGi0uo8
Leaving the coastline.
Immigration forms for Taiwan were distributed, followed by distribution of pre-booked meals and BOB service. Crew were all Jetstarry casual and friendly, no complaints here.
