Tag: flight review

I recently was really lucky to get a great deal on flights to Madrid via an odd route. Basically, you had to book through an OTA such as Expedia or last minute and select a European destination and a different return city from you departure city. I chose KUL-MAD-SIN and ended up on BA34 to London as this is where is transited.

The flight departed on time and although it was a full flight, the departure lounge felt half empty. I’m guessing that’s due to the configuration of the cabin on this 787-9 which has a tiny economy section and quite spacious premium sections.If you’ve flown on a 787 in economy before, you know what the deal is. Narrow seats, large overhead storage bins, nifty tinted windows.

As soon as the plane took off, drinks were served and there was loads of alcohol. One of the things with airlines such as Qatar is that they’re sometimes a bit stingy on alcohol. British Airways were not.

After drinks dinner was served. The choice was between chicken satay and meat and potatoes. The dessert was some sort of cake which was enjoyable. Even though the dishes were ugly, they tasted quite good and so much better than I was expecting. Better than my previous flight with Qatar I think.I find sleeping on a 787 really difficult. It’s all the more difficult when there is a metal entertainment unit under the seat in front like there was for me. If you have big feet and long legs, you can’t fully stretch out both legs under the seat in front of you and it greatly disturbs your sleep. How on earth I can buy an iPad with 256gb of memory that’s as 1cm thick and yet we still have entertainment units the size of a 1990s PC is beyond me. It needs to be fixed.After many hours of trying to get comfortable, I was finally able to sleep. I think I got close to 6 hours of on and off sleep which is the minimum I was aiming for on this 12.5 hour flight.

Breakfast sounded disgusting. Vegetarian omelette or omelette and steak. Of course no one wants a steak for breakfast, so by the time the meal service came to me, all the vegetarian options were taken. Needless to say, the steak was really nice! I’m glad I got it in the end. Of course the omelette was like a piece of rubber, but it was edible. A standard airline omelette.The staff. I haven’t flown on Western airlines much over the past decade so I’ve gotten used to Asian and Middle Eastern service. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly the BA crew. Not that over the top sickly sweet thing you can sometimes get, but a genuine pleasantness that is sometimes missing from the Asian airlines. And they felt much more professional than some of the Asian airlines as well. If there was an emergency, you felt that they had things under control.

The flight arrived into London slightly early without any hiccups whatsoever. A perfectly uneventful flight with pleasant staff and decent food. The $350 for the return journey was money well spent and I can highly recommend BA on the KUL-LON route.

Secret tip: pick an aisle seat on a window block of 3 to avoid getting an entertainment unit under your seat.

We recently flew from Jakarta to Nagoya via Hong Kong and Nagoya to Bangkok via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific business class and it really was excellent. But one of these 4 legs was on an Airbus A350 and we think it deserves its own review.

Route

Hong Kong to Bangkok – CX701

Flight Time

2h 37m

Seating Configuration

1-2-1 with lay flat beds – every seat has aisle access

Boarding

Boarding was quick due to the dedicated business class boarding lane. Staff were courteous and we were seated very quickly.

Food

Food in Cathay Pacific Business Class is predictably good and plentiful. When you compare it to economy, you just never want to eat economy food again.

I started with a salad, Thai Green Chicken Curry and finished with blueberry Haagen-Daaz ice cream. I’d been stuffing my face in the business class lounge immediately prior to boarding, so this was more than enough food. Especially because it’s just supposed to be a refreshment rather than a full meal.

Seat

The seat in the Cathay Pacific A350 Business Class is excellent. Because the business class cabin only has 4 seats across, each seat has so so much room. The seats lie flat and I easily don’t touch the end of the bed and I’m about 182cm tall. Even tall people will be comfortable.

There are lots of different storage lockers in the seat for storage of hand bags and gadgets. I didn’t realise how convenient this would be until I start stashing all my junk in the empty cabinets everywhere.

Entertainment

The TV is MASSIVE. It has a large range of channels, music and games as well as 3 live TV channels. I really loved being able to watch BBC world and CNN live on board the flight.

The controller for the TV is excellent and has its very own ultra sharp LCD screen on it which is useful if you like playing games on the controller rather than the TV.

Connectivity

One of the great things about this aircraft is its connectivity. There is wifi available at a very reasonable price and it is fast. Most of the time it was as fast as 4G for me, so I could use Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with no problem whatsoever.

Prices are quite reasonable compared what we’ve seen on some other carriers:

1h – $9.95

Entire flight – $12.95

$12.95 for an entire flight is an incredible deal especially because data usage seems to be unlimited.

The other thing you are supposed to be able to do is use your normal mobile phone coverage and pay roaming charges through your own provider. I tried to get this to work, but my strong suspicion is that Telkomsel in Indonesia doesn’t have that sort of agreement. If you have a SIM card from a big provider in the US or Europe, I could imagine this working really well. The only problem would be if you have to pay exorbitant roaming charges or not – some people do, some don’t.

Toilets

This is actually one of my favourite aspects of the plane and I don’t know why. But these toilets are very cool. They come with a window which is great in and of itself. But this window lets in amazing amounts of light. And with this light, it makes the toilet looks bigger, cleaner and just better.

The amenities in the bathroom are all quality and the mirror is huge. Space seems bigger than previous business class toilets, but it could be just the natural light.

Note: this appeared to be in the front of the cabin only as the ones in the middle of business class seemed to have a baby change table instead of window.

Verdict

The business class cabin on the Cathay A350 is excellent. Very comfortable, well-connected and perhaps the new standard for business class cabins. Awesome.

I’ve flown Scoot on the Sydney – Singapore route before and wasn’t particularly impressed. This time was no different.

Scoot is a typical low cost carrier who charges extra for everything such as checked in baggage and food. We fly low cost carriers a lot and some do it really well and some don’t. A great example of a good low cost carrier is Norwegian. A bad example is Scoot.

It all starts with checked in baggage which costs $42 (for the purposes of this article all prices are in Singapore/Australian dollars which are essentially the same). If you decide you need more baggage than you originally booked, of course you have to go onto their website and buy more. This is pretty normal. What isn’t normal is that if you don’t make that purchase at least 48 hours before flying, you can’t make it online at all. You have to buy it at the airport and for that they charge $100.

My departure was pushed back 45 minutes from the time stated on my travel itinerary, but I wasn’t informed of that. Again, another issue which was no big deal.

Seating on the plane has to be paid for if you want to sit in a specific spot. Of course almost no one pays for this because you generally always get to sit together with you travel companions anyway. What you can’t predict is who else is going to be seated next you. And on this flight I encountered a nightmare situation. My seat was surround by kids and one group in particular were just atrocious. When you fly full service you often get groups of kids near the bulkhead, but on this scoot flight they seemed to be scattered around everywhere. It was truly awful.

Food on the flight was expensive. Main meals run at between $12 & $15 and are small. A slim can of coke (250ml??) costs $4, a tiny water (330ml) costs $4 and a beer $8. Which brings me to my next point.

You can’t do this 7h 30m without some form of sustenance. It’s just too long. But Scoot have a policy of forbidding you to eat or drink anything on board that you haven’t bought from them. It’s outrageous and means that you’re guaranteed to spend at least $8 on 2 bottles of small water and perhaps $5 for a cup of noodles and $12 for a tray of brownness.

In my experience, you can sneak food on board and eat it, although I didn’t see anyone else doing this. I did, however, see lots of people bring water from outside. It’s $3.50 (660ml) at McDonald’s before you board the plane.

The TZ1 flight was on a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. These are nice planes, but as I’ve said before, airlines love to fit them out in a 3-3-3 configuration and 2 men sitting side by side will generally be touching shoulders for the whole flight. And forget about using the armrest because it is so narrow.

The seats on this Scoot flight were OK. Again, they were those cheap slimline seats which are fine over the course of 3 hours, but after 7 hours really get a bit old. There are no TVs in the backs of seats although I did see an advertisement for renting portable sets. Wifi is available on board at predictably exorbitant prices.

A really frustrating point about the seats, though, are the call and light buttons. They are exactly where you put your arm on the armrest. And you will forever by ringing the service bell, turning the light on, turning it off… And the whole cabin is doing it too throughout the whole flight. Constantly. It means the hosties are running up and down the aisle constantly attending to calls which are false alarms. Such a simple thing which causes all sorts of hassles for both staff and passengers.

One thing which really shits me? They charge you $5 to use the power sockets beneath your chair. What a cynical grab for extra cash. I reckon they’d probably earn $100 per flight from this revenue source at the expense of inconveniencing 200 other people. Massive thumbs down on that.

All up, if you opt for some of the extras like checked in baggage and a bit of food, your flight quickly balloons from $199 one way to something in the order of $275 which is not that cheap. It’s cheaper than any full service carrier, but it’s nowhere near as cheap as what the headline price appears to be.

Of course, this is the business model of low cost carriers, but Scoot manage to extract just that little bit more out of you. For me, they’re in the worst category of low cost carrier and in the same realms as Ryan Air. A Complete bag of shite.

All in all, an OK option if you’re flying from Sydney to Singapore. But if I have a choice again, I’ll be willing to pay an extra $100-$150 on another airline rather than put up with Scoot. Not sure how realistic that is, but seriously. Scoot is at the bottom of the pile now.

Flying from Europe to the USA has always been one of those things you only do once per decade due to the prohibitive cost of flights and until recently, only full service carriers flew the route. But with the advent of airlines such as WOW Air out of Iceland, flying between Europe and the USA doesn’t have to expensive anymore.

I recently flew Norwegian Airlines from Oslo (OSL) to Los Angeles (LAX) in one of their brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliners and learned that cheap doesn’t have to be nasty.

I bought my wife’s ticket for this flight 3 months before departure for a mere €186 (US$205). She has a perfectly sized carry on bag and because Norwegian are so generous with their hand luggage weights, it easily fit within the cabin baggage limits.

I on the other hand have a beast of a backpack which always has to be checked. And on Norwegian, this is the beginning of where you get stung. I bought my ticket 2 months before departure for €265 (US$296) which is still an absolute bargain. This included a €33 (US$37) fee for checked baggage. They also offer free meals onboard for an extra €33 (US$37) and seat selection for a further €33 (US$37)??? You can bundle these 3 addons for an extra fee of €66 (US$74) which is a little steep in my view. In the end, I chose not to preorder meals or seating and everything worked out fine.

Norwegian Airlines Boeing 787

By now, everyone knows that the Boeing 787 is a state of the art aircraft with large windows which don’t have window shades – rather, adjustable dimmers.But the problem with the 787 is that airlines love to pack passengers in like sardines even more than they usually do. The legroom I had was more than adequate and I’m 5″11′ (181cm). But it’s the fact that airlines including Norwegian insist on a 9 abreast seating configuration when 8 abreast is ideal for economy cabins. The means seats and arm rests are extremely narrow. I’m a normal sized guy. Maybe on the light side of things. But when I sit next to another man on a 787, my shoulders touch his. This is torture on long haul because you’re constantly fighting for shoulder space. Luckily for me on this flight to LAX, the guy next to me was short with narrow shoulders. I actually felt comfortable for the entire flight! But your luck certainly can vary. If you’re next to a big person or you yourself are big, this will be a nightmare flight.Each seat has an entertainment unit which also serves as your online shop for the snack bar.

There was a reasonable selection of recent movies as well as documentaries, TV shows and classic movies. The games selection is as it is on every other airline these days. Sudoku, backgammon and chess.But the interesting part about the entertainment system is the snack bar. You simple scroll through the list of items they have for sale, pick what you want and scan your credit card. About 5 minutes later a hostess will deliver your order to your seat. I’m sure they get lots of orders this way.

You can even keep track of all your orders during the flight.

The selection of snacks went way beyond what I had expect and prices weren’t too bad and certainly cheaper than much of what’s available in Oslo airport. Tip: eat on the plane, not at Oslo Airport.

A large selection of spirits, liqueurs and wines are available plus some beers, soft drinks and water. As a general rule, non-alcoholic drinks (330ml) were US$3.50, spirits (50ml) US$8, beer (330ml) US$6, coffee/tea US$4 and wine (187ml) US$7. That’s pretty reasonable in my book. Of course if you want to get smashed on the plane, it’s going to cost you a lot.Snacks included muffins for US$4, Pringles US$3.50, hot snacks (like a panini) for US$7, vegetarian sandwiches US$7, chocolate bar US$2.50, salad US$9 and noodle pot for US$4. Again, not cheap, but not so bad if you got a great deal on the flight. And besides, if you want cheap, you simply bring your own food and don’t buy theirs.

And on that note, I wanted to comment on how much food you’re going to need for this 10hour flight. For two people, I brought along with me 2 massive sandwiches, a packet of chips, a block of chocolate, 2 cheese rolls, 2 apple pies, a bottle of water, 2 bananas and a muffin. Let me tell you, it was enough. I could have left off the apple pies and cheese rolls and had been fine. But we ate them anyway so we didn’t have to declare them on arrival at LAX.One last comment on the aircraft itself. I don’t think there are enough toilets onboard. There was a line for the toilets for the entire flight. The red light indicating the toilets were occupied never went green. It’s really odd because I’d never seen that before. Ah well, if you’re desperate, you just have to wait 15 minutes in line. And maybe you need to stretch your legs anyway.

The flight touched down in LAX on time and without and dramas. Truth be told, this flight was so much more enjoyable than I had expected. We got seated together even though we didn’t pay for seats. We were never hungry despite not paying for meals. And our hand luggage had no trouble getting on board because of the Norwegian hang luggage limit of 10kg plus a small handbag or laptop bag.

So while long haul low cost carriers such as Air Asia can be a nightmare, Norwegian Air really show everyone how it should be done. I’d happily fly them again if the price discount was big enough compared to full service carriers. Because at the end of the day, many full service carriers feel almost the same once on board. Especially so called 5 star carriers such as Qatar who I also flew recently and who also have a 9 abreast seating configuration on Boeing 787s.

Buy your tickets early and get a great deal! Check prices now on Norwegian.com

Back in November there was this crazy sale on Qatar Airways where you could get an open jaw ticket for and incredible price. All you had to do was start your journey in Malaysia, end it in Jakarta and enter Europe through one city and return via another. We had no plans to go to Europe, but when we plugged in some dates to the website, we couldn’t believe the price. US$350 for the entire trip inclusive of all taxes and fees — we just had to buy it.

Our flight was from Kuala Lumpur to Copenhagen with a 2h30m transit in Doha. Both flights used brand new Boeing 787 dreamliners and it was our first time flying in them. While most aspects of the two flights were great, the planes themselves were substandard for a full service for reasons we’ll get to in a moment. First, the inflight service.

On each flight we were offered package refresher towels not long after take off and the meal service started soon after. The food out of Kuala Lumpur was below average for a full service carrier, but quite good out of Doha. A second fairly heavy snack was served out of Kuala Lumpur and a light snack served out of Doha. Both meals out of Doha were far far better than out of KL.

Drinks were offered several times throughout both flights, staff were very friendly and attentive and the overall level of service was good.

For those of you who haven’t flown on a Dreamliner, the windows are the star of the plane. No window shades — just this dimmer function which can create an incredibly dark cabin electronically.

The seat configuration in economy on Qatar 787s is 3-3-3 and it should be outlawed. The seats are extremely narrow to the point where my body was twisted sideways for 7 hours straight out of KL because I was next to another man. Not a big man. Just a man. And because men often have broad shoulders, it means there is not enough room if two normal sized men sit next to each other. There was no fight for the armrest — we were fighting to see whose arm could be on top of whose. We weren’t just rubbing shoulders, our shoulders were overlapping at times. Eating a meal like this is very difficult. I would hate think how it would be with two bigger people sitting next to each other.

Aside from the narrowness of the seats, I also found them to be very close together when the person in front reclines their seat. You always get up personal when this happens in economy, but this flight felt more like Air Asia in this regard than any other full service carrier I’ve flown on.

The positives were the entertainment unit which has a large sharp screen, USB port and lots of movies. Each seat also comes with a power socket, but there’s no way you’ll be working on a laptop — there’s just not enough room unless you’re lucky enough to have no one sitting next to you.

So what’s the verdict? If I’d paid US$1000 for these flights, I’d be disappointed at being crammed into the the seats like we were. But given that we only paid US$350, I just can’t complain.

But we learned a lesson. Do not fly on a Boeing 787 if it’s fitted with a 3-3-3 configuration. It’s just too uncomfortable for a long haul flight.