Entertaining and well written! I demand more pictures next time! :p

‘Where do you live?’
‘Singapore’
‘What do you do there?’
‘I populate my dad’s bank account with financial black holes’

:D

I thought this was a pajama run :p

When intelligent people put pen to paper in this forum, the result is often reports like this – a most satisfying and humorous read, and all this with less than ten photos so far. You and eightblack are two of the finest writers here and should you two ever collaborate on a book, I’ve no doubt it would be a best seller.

BTW, I knew "poulet" is chicken, but I wasn't familiar with “poulard”. I saw it on the Lufthansa menu and as it was corn fed, that ruled out plant matter. Sticking with the prefix “poul-“, I suspected it could be a lardy chicken. Imagine my surprise then when I looked it up and found out it was exactly that! :eek:

Thank you for that kind comment. I daresay that if eightblack and I ever have the patience to stand each other through collaboration on a book, we'd likely send an airline or two into bankruptcy and everything would end in tears. Or worse.

at least most of the flights had left BLR by the time you were at the lounge. if the BA flight and the FRA flight was still there, you would be sitting on the ground...probably just KA pax by then...

the oberoi lounge as i recall.

It was the Executive Lounge or something like that. The FRA flight hadn't left, because someone actually mistakenly came and told me to board my flight, thinking I was flying to FRA. But there were a few people sleeping on the floor. It got a lot emptier by the time I left, though.

If everything I’ve done so far wasn’t a little bit crazy, my next two flights take the cake for proving my insanity. If you’ve been to Dubai for more than three days, you probably know that no matter how much you try, you will end up at one of the shopping malls. They’re good shopping malls, but after having been to each and every one more times than I can count on ten hands, I’m a little bored of them.

So I decided I’d instead spend half a day flying to and from Muscat. I’d fly out at 0830, and be back in Dubai by noon. At 40 minutes of flying time, MCT is the shortest hop on the EK network, and the turnaround would earn me a whopping 50 tier miles on the enhanced Skywards (or something in that ballpark). And I figured, that while I was racking up enough flight time and sectors to have done a RTW, I might as well do the shortest flight on the network. I’d do the longest too, but this trip was in Economy.

I’ve actually written up a fairly detailed report of my trip over on the EK forum. But here’s the gist of it.

I spent 20 seconds packing. Wallet, phone, passport, noise canceling earphones. Then I wasted 5 minutes at document check while the agent tried to scan the QR code on my e-boarding pass as it spun around on my iPhone. Blame techonology.

I wandered through the airport like a homeless person. I mean, who gets on a flight with no checked or hand luggage? Anyway, whatever I would need was in the lounge. Once I’d got through the maze of people that Dubai Duty Free is, I found myself pouring glasses of Moet 2002 down my throat. A new champagne recently introduced in the lounges as a replacement for it’s inferior cousin, the non-vintage Moet.

I had a quick bite in the lounge, thankfully, as we were given 5 minutes to eat our meal onboard. The outbound flight was quite uneventful, though the presence of someone in 25E beside me was quite disconcerting. Also, the 40 minute flight was delayed by 40 minutes - how's that for on time performance? Apparently the thing that pushes the plane back broke down, and the only spare was being used to wheel the sheikh's container of rubies and diamonds across the courtyard of his palace.

Muscat was a breeze. Transiting in Muscat, that is. When I got to the gate though, the gate agent probably mistook my e-boarding pass for a weapon of mass destruction. She went hysterical, saying I needed a paper boarding pass. Maybe I should have got one for the collection! Eventually she managed to locate me using the sequence number, which was all very good till the agent at the door leading to the bus refused to let me get on because he was equally zapped by the e-boarding pass. ‘Wait till the end and board with First Class’ he said. Fine by me.

When I got back on board, the 2 FAs at 3L and 3R were quite amused to see me in the same seat on the turnaround. I don’t know if ‘amused’ is the right word to use – it might have been that they thought something was seriously wrong with me. But I’m an honest guy. I told them I was doing it to rack up some extra miles, which probably didn’t help my case. At least I had an empty seat beside me this time!

Who does an international transit (sort of) at Bangalore, almost gets cavity searched, and then repeats the process a week later? Had I foreseen the complications that would arise, I would probably have rerouted myself via Baghdad. But it was a little too late for that, and as doomsday approached, I can’t say I was looking forward to another ride on an EK A330, a 7 hour transit at BLR, and then an overnight flight to Bangkok.

Now here’s the problem with regional flights. They don’t have a First cabin. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe my TG flight will be stocked with Dom by mistake. For now, back to the horrors of whY.

The funny thing is, my day actually turned out to be quite pleasant. I’m not much of a philosopher, but I think we are all creatures of habit. In the last couple of flights, I felt myself becoming a jaded traveler, trying to minimize interaction with everyone around me. Even trying to be less of a snob and hide away in a corner. Something was wrong with me.

Anyway, my point is that irrespective of the class you travel in, a journey can be great when the unexpected happens. The good kind of unexpected, like when you walk onto the aircraft expecting Skycruisers, but you get Suites. Or when you’re expecting the crew to be 60 but they’re 20. You get my drift.

This was such a day. For starters, DXB was empty. It was a ghost town. I’ve never been the only person checking in at the dedicated Silver check in. Sure, the normal queues were a bit of a bloodbath, but who cares about those people anyway? The only problem was, the check in agent told me to proceed to the gate. Which has never happened before – they always tell me to go to the lounge. As it turns out, there was a name mismatch on my account (thanks, no doubt, to a couple of FTers hacking into my Skywards account).

The Emirates Lounge, in T1, was a peaceful haven at 10 am. There must have been 10 other people in the entire lounge, and I had the stash of Moet 2002 all to myself. I think it rivaled a lot of First lounges out there, and all this for flying 25k a year on Emirates. Or 250k if you're buying Saver fares.

Surprise number 2 for the day was the service onboard. Yes, it was another rubbish A330, and a horrid 2 class at that. But sitting in the exit row has it’s advantages, like being able to interact with the crew. I was delivered a glass of champagne soon after take off. In a take away crew coffee cup. Sneaky, but well played on the part of the FA. There were only 3 Golds onboard, but I can well imagine the hundred people behind me asking why they didn't get a glass of bubbly.

That’s the kind of thing that makes a flight outstanding. The little touches and the extra attention. An EK pen with the immigration form, a glass of water when collecting empty cups, a blanket when I didn’t ask for one, an extra snack mix when I didn’t ask for one. That’s one of the reasons I like Emirates. Their crew are sometimes outstanding, and really make an effort to deliver exceptional service. And I’ve had pretty good luck with EK, with everything from snacks from J, tea from F, chatty Pursers, champers and chocolates. All in Y.

And surprise number 3 was BLR. I knew what to expect, or I thought I did, so I asked EK check in at DXB if they could let ground staff know I wanted to transit. They couldn’t. Then onboard, I spoke to the Purser and explained my situation, but she couldn’t speak to ground staff either, though she did mention something about speaking to the Captain, but then said I should see her at the door on landing. When I got there, someone from ground staff was ready for me. Apparently, this time around, their system had told them I was in transit.

When I got off the aircraft, someone was waiting for me, placard with my name in hand. International transit was once again impossible because I hadn’t done OLCI and printed my boarding pass. Not to worry, he escorted me through immigration, which was painless this time around. Looked at passport, looked at me, looked at passport, looked at me, stamped passport. My new best friend at BLR then escorted me through baggage collection and customs (where he told the officer on duty that the X-mark on my bag was a scratch, and not a ‘this bag has loot, raid it’ mark).

It was all very smooth. I was escorted all the way to departures, but then I had to wait about 3 hours till Thai opened their check in desks. Another good sign – the flight only has 8 of 30 occupied. And the lounge staff at the Executive lounge in BLR actually remembered me from last week. Now it remains to be seen whether I get another pair of pyjamas on this flight!

Airports in India have their own set of rules.:D:D:D

Another enjoyable update.

Nice read!

What's this story?

And omg that ticket thing in India. Seriously, this report has pointed out almost every annoyance there is in humorous fashion, great job.

I laughed out loud when I read that! I've been guilty of the thinking the same thing on more than once occasion!

perhaps it was a new one that perhaps the Leela group openened versus the oberoi operated one?

i know it does not appear to be here...just the private lounges and the oberoi.

http://www.bengaluruairport.com/airp...n/lounges.jspx