Killing time
Despite not having napped yesterday afternoon in order to encourage a good night sleep, it didn’t work. I’m not so good flying eastbound. Retiring at 2115 last night, I woke up about 3h later.
After about an hour, I took a half-strength sleeping pill which didn’t quite work so well. I didn’t feel fully asleep but the most important thing was that I didn’t feel like the time was dragging.
I got up when my alarm went off at 0700 and did various things on my computer till heading to the airport around 1030.
Now, travelling without a checked-in bag, I was able to go from kerb straight to airside. Immigration was fully-automated and modern security scanning equipment no longer require laptops or LAGs to be presented separately.
I still had 4h50 to kill before departure so did some exploring to keep up my step count before spending about 3h in the lounge.
Changi Airport Terminal 4
Singapore’s Changi Airport Terminal 4 hosts four airlines from the AirAsia family (AK, QZ, FD and Z2), flying to many different cities. It’s doesn’t support hubbing or sell connections through Singapore for any of those airlines whose hubs are in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila (amongst others).
But there are so many AirAsia flights that I would like the airline group to sell connections through this awesome airport. It’s better than their real hubs!
This airport does now have a hefty departure tax of around SGD60 but transit passengers on the same ticket pay around SGD9.
This would hurt Singapore’s local budget airlines, namely Scoot and Jetstar Asia. I suspect the airport authority isn’t commercial enough to their potential for increased passenger revenue at the expense of their local airlines. It might be contrary to “national interests”.
AirAsia doesn’t sell connections through Singapore even though it has so many flights to/from here from many cities.
Flying to Kuching
Boarding gates here at automated. One’s boarding pass is scanned and matched to facial/iris recognition captured at the automated immigration kiosks earlier when one’s boarding pass and passport are presented. Passports checks are hence not required. This doesn’t take away the risk of passengers boarding without passports or with damaged, mutilated passports though.
My flight at 1520 got to my hometown Kuching on-time despite the 25 min taxi at Singapore. With no luggage, I was out quickly and picked up by my close friend Boo. I appreciated his efforts as I have two busy days of cleaning and organisation for five guests coming from the UK who are coming to stay in my apartment. During that time, I will camp at my brother’s.