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

I notice I will be on the same aircraft and same seat again (that's 3 flights in a row). Again I check some emails and FT, drink some Dom and freshen up. derpelikan joins me for a while - he'd been trying to get on the same flight from Tokyo but was unable and thus took the longer option via Bangkok (still on SQ).

I headed for the gate slightly early for me, arriving a full 30 minutes before scheduled departure - which I was soon to regret. Again a queue out the door for security, but this time stupidly across the pier instead of down it - blocking the way for anyone heading to or from the gate past this one. Boarding has already started - as is often the case it starts early for SQ flights to New Zealand - but so far only for first, business, PPS and *Gold passengers. As I often do when on the upper deck and boarding is through 2 airbridges I mentally tossed a coin as to which way would be easiest. Left and through door 1L then through zone B to get to stairs (with a possible wait by door 2L to cross paths), or right and through door 2L and straight up the stairs. I chose right but should have chosen left since there was a long queue here in the hot airbridge. 5 minutes later and I'm onboard and up the stairs - it is sweltering inside, well over 30 C. It seems the APU hasnt been fixed and so the a/c has heated up badly during the few hours it sat parked here.

To compound the discomfort we pushed back late due to traffic congestion and so I had an unpleasant hour until the air cooled sufficiently to be comfortable.

Someone must have reset the IFE for my seat during the stop since it was now working ^ I had my BTC meal and then quickly fell into a deep sleep only to walk up with bright sun streaming in the windows 6 hours later. Yup the FAs forgot to pull down the blinds. Shortly after I awoke they went around closing most of the blinds, but left some hard to reach ones open! Service was again uncharacteristically poor. Here are some more examples, missed drink service, no drink top-ups (or even asking if we wanted top-up), forgot which coffee type I had requested (in just a few seconds!), forgot (or misremembered) I don't have milk with my coffee, rubbish left on the armrest for most of the flight (still uncleared by the time we landed), at breakfast forgot to ask if I wanted any yoghurt, another missed hot towel (just skipped a couple of rows), etc.

Breakfast was served a couple of hours prior to landing.

It was a fine spring day in Auckland with scattered cloud and so great views of the hills, harbours and city which we circled to land from the east. Immigration and customs were surprisingly empty for what is normally a busy time of day, and so my plane to exit time (with no checked bags) was an excellent 5 minutes even though we got the gate at the end of the pier.