Happy to leave!

Happy to leave!

It is spring in New Zealand but I had been secretly counting down the days till I depart.  The house is undergoing renovations and it has been disruptive, culminating with lots of white gib dust in the plastering process.

On top of that, the month back in New Zealand hadn’t been the best for me, having caught something flu-like probably in Sydney on the way back from my last trip.  While it wasn’t serious, it was very persistent and niggly.

This trip utilises one of two staff tickets that are expiring this year, so it seems excusable for me to travel again about after a month at home.

I woke at 0600 for a 0630 ride to the airport to avoid the rush-hour.   The roads were already busy but nothing could prepare me for the check-in from hell at the airport when I got there less than 4 hours before the 1105 departure.

Check-in from hell

The combined queue for three Asian flights within a 1h30 min departure window had gone past the zig-zag setup.  There were only six economy counters and three premium counters open.  Some airlines have that many counters for just one flight!

It appears that kiosks aren’t in use for these flights anymore due to the high number of interline connections to places beyond those three ports.  These may require additional visa or entry checks.

With no bag to check-in, the 1h30 spent in the queue seemed even more frustrating.  The scene turned chaotic as the Hong Kong flight was starting to board airside with passengers still stuck in the queue behind me.  Staff prioritised them but it was very disorderly due to the number of people that had to come forward.

With an open-jaw ticket returning from Taipei, I was asked for proof of onward travel from Singapore.  I had my boarding pass to Kuching already so it wasn’t an issue but this is rarely asked for Singapore.  I wonder how they handle people who intend to take a public bus or walk across the border.  I was tempted to ask but didn’t want to hold up the queue.

Flying standby today, I was lucky to be given a boarding pass straight away rather than wait till close-off an hour before departure.  I had a Premium Economy (paid upgrade) seat stuck between people. Yippee!

It took about 30 mins to get airside, which gave me an hour in the lounge for breakfast.  There, I noticed that my Business Class paid upgrade had come through on the app. I let off a genuine Yippee then.

Inflight

The flight to Singapore was pleasant and went extremely quickly.  The new meal service was time-consuming but the food came beautifully presented.  It helped the time pass during the daylight flight.

Afterwards, I did some planning on the computer for my Saudi trip in December, fell asleep horizontally for perhaps an hour, and then did a bit more work.

Soon enough it was dinner time, after which we landed in Singapore a little before the scheduled time of 1650.

I noticed that the Business Class amenity kit included a bamboo toothbrush (yeah, plastic is bad) but I wonder how many people have been fined for not declaring in going into Australia or New Zealand.

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Transit in Singapore

Today I have a 3h25 self-connect from Air New Zealand at T3 to Scoot in T1.  With lots of delays out of Auckland in recent weeks, I had a back-up ticket on AirAsia for the next day, priced at SGD15 + SGD60 of taxes which are refundable if the flight wasn’t utilised.

It was a hike to get to the T3 train stop to take me to T1 where I spent over an hour in the SATS lounge.  My experiences at the Marhaba lounge had been less pleasant with too many guests, leading me to conclude that it was actually more spacious in the public area (apart from the food an drinks).  So, today I made the right choice to use the SATS lounge.

Unlike my previous trip over a month ago, I was good and alert, and used my time to book my upcoming trains for Taiwan.  I heard that the Hualien route can be pretty full during the weekends.

The Taiwan Rail website hadn’t worked over the last few days but something prompted me to use a VPN set to Taiwan and it worked like magic.  It had worked perfectly find without a VPN in previous weeks though.