We woke at 0540 after a slightly restless sleep. I’m not good with sleep before an early flight. It didn’t help that the bed wasn’t the most comfy, with plastic sheeting underneath the sheets.
At check-out the receptionist very kindly offered to summon a Grab car for me as taxis have a surcharge before 0700. I had forgotten about that. After thanking her, I summoned one myself. The hotel is not well placed for pick-up/drop-off as it was on the corner of two busy streets. At this time, it was OK.
The flight this morning from Singapore to Auckland was overbooked very badly in Economy with some spare seats in the premium classes. We were on standby and it looked pretty unlikely as on-ithe-whole, it was still rather overbooked. Checking in at 0630 we were told to return at 0730, which was 1h20 before departure.
We grabbed tea at McDonald’s. Returning at 0730, it was a long wait eavesdropping at what the staff were saying about the loads and the no-shows they were still waiting on. They finally closed the flight 40 mins prior to departure and we were issued boarding passes. Our paid upgrades in Business Class was a nice reward for the slightly tense wait … I had resigned myself to not getting on the flight so I wasn’t too stressed.
On board, we learnt that the airline had to upgrade quite a few economy passengers to premium economy, and the premium economy passengers to business. Apparently there had been an aircraft substitution which created a reduction in economy seats and an increase in business.
The flight went quickly and we arrived into Auckland around 2330 in time for bed.