I had never flown on Malaysia Airlines before, so it was an easy choice when booking the flights.
However, I forgot to mention that the lady at the check-in/baggage drop-off counter printed two flight tickets for me. The Gulf Air lounge dragon kept one of them.

This beauty will take me to KUL

I was informed that there was no announcement for the Malaysia Airlines flight in the Qatar Airways lounge. As the boarding time approached, I made my way to the gate. When I arrived, I saw that the area at the gate was crowded, but no one was queuing up, and the line barriers were empty.


The boarding began at 10:15. The first to board were the usual pre-boarders, followed by families with babies. Five minutes later, group 1 followed.

Business class cabin

The first row in A350 is Business Suite, followed by six business class rows (see the aerolopa map). Each row was different.

Seats 3A and 4A

I was seated in 3A with the control panel and reading light to my right. It appeared that the area hadn't been cleaned properly as there were some leftovers from the previous passenger.

Control panel and reading light


IFE and seat control panels



Safety card




Universal socket and USB port for charging


Space to store up to 7lbs

Once I was seated, a cabin crew brought pre-departure drinks: signature lychee drink, orange juice, and apple juice. I particularly enjoyed the lychee drink.

PDB

menu:




IFE was very responsive and offered a variety of movies from all over the world, TV shows, music, radio channels, and a "Best of Malaysia" menu as well.


After the boarding was completed, the captain welcomed us. There were two sets of captains and first officers on this long flight. Surprisingly, the captain was very talkative. So far, I have found that only British Airways pilots are talkative and can talk a lot (not a complaint, I quite enjoy listening to them). The captain warned us that we could expect turbulence, especially over the Bay of Bengal. At this point, nothing was mentioned about a delay, only that we would be taxiing for 20 minutes.

We still had several minutes until the scheduled departure time (11:00) when the person in charge of the cabin came to introduce herself. This was followed by another announcement from the captain - the dreaded one where he announced a 30-minute delay due to congestion in LHR and Europe.

Safety video

After a 30-minute delay, the captain announced another delay. This time, we were scheduled to depart at 12:15. I was not happy because I only had 2.5 hours for my transfer at KUL. As predicted by the captain, we departed at 12:15 and flew over London.


LHR

Wimbledon

Once the seat belt sign was turned off, the cabin crew distributed the amenity kit bags, and drinks followed shortly after. We were not given a drink menu, but they had champagne Duval-Leroy, Pinot Grigio as the white wine, and I'm not sure what the red wine was.

Amenity kit


They also turned on the wifi, free for business class passengers. I had to provide my name and seat number to access it. The wifi wasn't the fastest, but passengers could purchase a faster connection or more data.


45 min into the flight, it was time for Satay!



The food arrived shortly. I ordered the fish, and it was delicious (a bit spicy, though).

Seared chicken and Salted caramel cake


Ikan Bakar ala Portugis

As always, after finishing the food, everybody closed their window blinds, except for me. It was still daylight outside, and I wanted to watch the planes.

As we flew above the Bay of Bengal, the pilots turned on the seatbelt signs and even asked the cabin crew to stop the service and sit down despite there being hardly any turbulence. I assume it's because of the Singapore Airlines incident several months ago.

Around 2 hours before landing, another meal was served. This time, I tried the shrimp version of Nasi Lemak.

Starters

Nasi Lemak Prawn Sambal


sunrise somewhere above Malaysia

We landed only 30 minutes later than the scheduled arrival time, which meant I still had some time to explore the lounge.