Auckland to Singapore (AKL-SIN) Raffles (Business) Class on SQ 747

Finally I get finish the last minute meetings and emails and head for the airport. As we drive through light traffic I ponder that cabs are a bit like the airlines - quick to raise fares when petrol rose in price but so far no drop despite petrol being a third cheaper than the peak. At least cabs include the basic cost of fuel in the tariff and not as a surcharge.

On arrival I see check in for Singapore Airlines is busy, as are the other check in desks. Still, it isn't as busy as I'd expected given start of school holidays. Check in is completed quickly as I know the drill - NZ$25 cash for departure fee, use the immigration at the far left of check in and express lane upstairs, SQ uses the NZ lounge, etc. For the first time as far as I can recall I cannot get return boarding passes from SQ. Oh well it is only a minor inconvenience getting them along the way.

No queue at the special immigration. Arriving in the express lane upstairs I am thankful for this service - the regular lines snake out into the landside part of the terminal and must take at least 40 minutes to get through. Even the express lane takes a few minutes. The woman in front looked like she would set off the WTMD so I checked the other ones along the way and nabbed an empty one. I don't understand why people flock like lemmings to join the queue for the WTMD right in front of the immigration officer that just dealt with them when others have no queue at all. My gain this time as sure enough she did set off the alarm - far too much jewellery left on as well as metal on belts and shoes.

So I arrive at the nice NZ lounge maybe 15 minutes after reaching the airport. The lounge is packed and I soon find out the reason why - an NZ flight to Sydney was first delayed and then cancelled. A minor change since I last visited was the installation of soft drink dispenser replacing the cans. Of course the fridge is reduced by 1/3 to make room for it. (Don't worry mad_atta there are still plenty of wines .)

The flight is called rather early. Too early I think so I am in no hurry finishing off some emails and freshening up before heading to the gate. By the time I get to the gate boarding has only just started and I head straight on. I had been checking availability the past week and it was showing as very full - generally F2 A2 and lots of zeroes. But SQ is very good at managing loads and so no op-up. It doesn't matter since I have my favourite upper deck exit row seat to settle in to.

I unwind from the rush of the past week with a pre-departure drink. Doors are closed on schedule - yup totally full flight - but we take a while to push back and so by the time we begin takeoff roll it is 30 minutes after scheduled departure. The captain is very chatty - taking a few minutes to do his speil (and same again prior to landing in Singapore).

The food, drink and service are good as always; however the flight was marred by a few cockroaches being seen around my and my seatmates seats. They have no spray to knock out any other crawling around and can only tell us to look out for them If they had empty seats I'm sure we would have been moved but we had to spend the last several hours of the flight with a slightly creepy feeling. I've never seen any inspect onboard a flight before other than the odd fly (especially Australian domestic flights) or mosquito.