Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia Business Class
When I turned up at the gate five minutes past the published boarding time on my boarding pass, everything was still closed and no aircraft was in sight, just as I had expected. I continued touring the terminal a bit, and arrived approximately 20 minutes later at the gate again, which was now open. The boarding process at BKK is different from the usual boarding process found at most airports throughout the world. Here, your boarding pass will already be scanned when you enter the gate waiting area, so technically, you are already on board. I’m actually not sure whether that helps with the actual boarding process later, as there is nothing in front of the jet bridge that would stop people from just rushing onto the plane all at once.
Due to the transfer counter being closed (or unavailable, or whatever), I was only in possession of my mobile passbook boarding pass, which I presented together with my passport. However, they could obviously not use that to board me, as they needed to retain the smaller part of the paper boarding pass. Hence, I had to wait for a few seconds until the second gate agent had printed a paper copy of my boarding pass. Interestingly enough, the printed boarding pass now said that I were „invited to the Louis Tavern lounge“ (sic!), while the Louis Tavern lounges have already been rebranded to Miracle lounge quite while ago.
Approximately 20 minutes before our scheduled departure, our plane arrived at the gate. At this point it was already clear that we wouldn’t be able to depart on time (not even FR is able to turn their 737s around in 20 minutes), but no information whatsoever was given by the gate staff.
The Flight
Flight: MH789
From: BKK/VTBS
To: KUL/WMKK
Aircraft Type: Boeing 737-800
Registration: 9M-MLF
STD: 14:15
STA: 17:30
Boarding for business class and oneworld status members was called shortly after our scheduled departure time, and I was quite surprised that they actually enforced priority boarding. Everybody had to show their legitimation at the door to the finger, and people who didn't meet the requirements were consequently held back. However, there seemed to be a lot of priority passengers on this flight (which would become completely full), so I still had to wait a few seconds in the finger.
Contrary to what I (and many others) who are primarily flying intra-European shorthauls are used to when it comes to business class, MH has 4 rows of "proper" business class seats in a 2-2 configuration which are separated from the main cabin by a fixed bulkhead. However, as this flight was completely full, I realized that there is actually one advantage of the European layout where they block a middle seat in a 3-3 configuration for business class, you are much closer to your seatmate, which, depending on who you are dealing with, may be good or bad. Still, those "real" business class seats offer a lot more comfort and legroom. However, if you really need lots of legroom, you should choose to sit in row 1, particularly on the port side (1A and 1C), as the legroom there is much better than in my seat in the second row.
While the seats themselves were really old and worn (due to the heavy cabin load, I didn't take any pictures of the entire seat), the legroom was good (even though I would have preferred not to have the footrest which restricted the option to fully stretch my legs while still sitting comfortably), and there was a small area to place a drink on the center armrest, along with ancient looking audio controls (no headphones were distributed, by the way).
The seat also reclines manually, which I didn't try, as there were people sitting right behind me.
After everybody had settled in, one of the flight attendants came around to offer welcome drinks. The choices were water, orange juice, apple juice or guava juice, both my seatmate and I chose guava.
Next up was a round of towels, which were probably supposed to be chilled, but were only "luke-cold", and they were of the same flimsy type that is also used on British Airways, for example (the latter even offer them in first class).
We pushed back roughly 30 minutes late and were soon on our way to Kuala Lumpur (or so I thought). The flight attendants came around to take meal orders, and when they started in the first row, I was a bit surprised that they were taking orders even though nobody knew the options. The guy sitting next to me was obviously a bit more experienced with the airline, as he grabbed into the seat pocket and pulled out a menu, which seems to stay there just like the onboard magazine. I was impressed that they were offering a choice of three main courses for a roughly 2-hour flight (even though I was surprised they didn't offer a vegetarian options, considering how many indian people live in Malaysia).
I should note that they weren't offering any alcoholic beverages on this flight, as they will only serve alcohol on flights that take longer than 3 hours. When they introduced this policy, it has caused quite an uproar on the internet, even though I don't really understand the issue people are having with that, but well.
I chose the chicken curry, which was served a few minutes later on a tray with the foil still covering the main dish. While it might help in keeping it warm, I really don't like this way of serving a hot main course, as you'll inevitably burn your fingers when trying to remove the foil.
All three courses were served on the same tray, and I chose some garlic bread to accompany the meal. For a 2 hour flight, the meal was quite substantial, contaning the main course, some salad and a relatively large dessert. Everything was served with Prik Nam Pla Thai chili and fish sauce, and even though I doubt it was meant this way, I used the sauce for the salad (it didn't look like it had any sauce on it - and the combination actually worked quite well).
The food was actually very good, much better than I had expected and the meal took at least half of the flight time. However, I should say that the tray table was actually not really clean (the entire cabin didn't look too clean, and I am not sure whether this was caused by the quick turnaround, or whether they don't keep their planes tidy in general.
After the meal, I visited the lavatory and was, once again, positively surprised that they were offering a variety of full-sized amenities here.
Soon after, we commenced our descent and the first officer announced our landing slightly behind schedule in a "slightly cloudy" Kuala Lumpur.
However, while we were descending, we had to circumnavigate quite an array of thunderstorm clouds, and I thought to myself "ok, so this is what they call slightly cloudy"?
The approach took quite long, and the farther we descended, the worse the weather became. At some point, we seemed to pass right through heavy thunderstorm clouds, and while the chopping of the plane was actually not all too bad (even though still in the category of "medium to severe turbulence"), I became quite concerned about how dark it would get outside the plane from time to time. Those were definitely not the weather conditions in which you should fly. At some point, we cleared the clouds, but didn't seem to be descending any more.
A few minutes later, the first officer came onto the PA again and said that they had abandoned their attempt to land as the weather was (obviously) too bad at the moment. We would be flying a large circle at FL80 which would take about 10 minutes, and, depending on the development of the weather, would then try another landing or divert to either Penang or Johor Bahru in order to refuel.
About 10 to 15 minutes later, he made another announcement that we were now actually heading to Johor Bahru where we would be landing in about 15 minutes. After he made that announcement, I was once again impressed how calm everybody remained. Never having had this situation before, I could imagine that in Europe, people would get quite upset about the delay and all the hassle accompanied with it, but nobody seemed to even sigh - even though it's definitely better to be delayed than to be a victim in a plane crash due to an unstable approach during bad weather, I'm not sure everybody would understand this.
Soon after, we touched down in JHB and were welcomed by the words "Welcome to Senai International Airport". We were assigned an apron position right next to a parked AirAsia A320, and somebody pushed a stair to the front door. The pilots explained that they now needed to order the refueling and get the papers ready for the continuation of our flight, and that would take about 45 minutes.
Considering that we were already running considerably behind schedule, I figured that it could get really close to catching my onward flight to Singapore (ironically, there's not airport that would get you as close to Singapore as JHB) and I decided to pull my plan B that I had factored in when booking the entire trip (as you can read in the introductory post), re-booking my KUL-SIN leg to the SilkAir flight at 9:45pm.
For quite some time, I tried to reach several Lufthansa hotlines (the general booking hotline, the FTL hotline and their Singapore office), but nobody would pick up. At some point, I was connected to someone speaking english, but the connection was really bad and she hung up on me. I then remembered that my ticket confirmation email had said something about a first class hotline, and I finally tried this number. Surprisingly enough, they picked up immediately. I shortly explained the situation and that I would not be able to catch my flight from KUL to SIN and asked to be rebooked onto a later flight. The agent instantly offered me the SilkAir flight, and I said "well, then I'll take that". She replied with something that still needed to be done at the gate in KUL which I didn't fully understand, and to be sure, I asked "OK, so you'll take care of everything now and ensure that I can take the later flight?" and the agent replied "That is exactly what I will do. Is there anything else I can help you with?" I was extremely keen on how easy and quick this went, and I definitely have to give LH a thumbs up for their idea to introduce a first class hotline (however, I don't want to imagine how I would have been able to handle this situation had I "only" been in business class).
The process of getting everything done for the pilots took much longer than expected (and they didn't seem to be happy about that), but still, everybody on board remained calm and nobody complained. The flight attendants were handling the situation quite well (even though there was not much to be handled), constantly offering drink refills, at least in business class. It took more than two hours until we were finally ready for the short 30-minute hop to continue our journey to the final destination in Kuala Lumpur.
Verdict
I have to say that I have some mixed feelings about this MH flight (which was my first on the airline). While I understand that they seem to be struggling quite hard to keep going, the condition and cleanliness of the seats and the cabin is definitely something they should improve. On the other hand, the service was flawless throughout the flight (particularly considering the special circumstances) and the food they were serving was really good. I will have the opportunity to fly one of their widebodies in summer and we'll see how that will compare.
The reachability of the Lufthansa hotlines left quite a bit to be desired, but once I got through on the F hotline, I was really surprised that they can offer such an uncomplicated way of helping out. Little did I know that the hotline agent had completely messed up while I was airborne again, and that's why the next installment will bear the title "Stranded in Kuala Lumpur".