I decided to give it a go. How bad could it be? And business class would ease the pain, or so I figured.

Check-in at Auckland Airport

Keen to make use of the free business class lounge at Auckland Airport I arrived in good time to check-in. The business class check-in had a rug on the floor which I thought was quite funny.

The check-in staff seemed flustered, so much so that after checking me in the woman totally forgot to give me my passport and boarding cards until I reminded her. No harm done, off to the lounge.

Qantas Lounge

Chris had written a review of the Qantas Lounge when he flew with Qatar back in March 2019. He made sure he was hungry enough so as to appreciate all the food offerings. I’d just had lunch with his mum so all I felt like was an orange juice. I did make use of the business centre though until it was time to go the gate.

QSuites – Auckland to Doha

I’d hardly sat down at the gate when it was time for business class passengers to board. Time to mentally prepare for 18 hours of hell! Turns out hell was quite comfortable with a lie-flat seat, finger touch digital controls, a soft blankey and free toiletries.

I had fun trying out all the different seat settings before we took off. The seat was enclosed in its own private cubicle which had a sliding door you could shut at any time, except during takeoff and landing.

I had my own personal steward, who kept dropping by to make sure I knew how everything worked and to give me a hot towel and orange juice.

I also got to choose what I wanted to eat throughout the flight. There was no set time for dinner which my economy class brain struggled with. “Just call me when you want to order,” he said. “But what if I don’t order, will you still give me dinner?”. He looked bemused. “Just call, it’s easy”. I shut up and tried to go with the flow.

I figured I’d mentally break up the 17.5 hour leg into three 5 hour blocks, with two or so hours for breakfast, ablutions and landing at the end. That turned out to work quite well.

The first 5 hours I did some work and ordered dinner, which took around 20 minutes to arrive. To be honest it was a little underwhelming, though there was a lot of it. The soup and strawberry tarts were great but the meat salad was extremely chewy and the fish wasn’t the best.

Dinner over, I watched a movie, changed into the complimentary pajamas and attempted to get some sleep.

I’d mentioned to the steward when he was making up my bed that I couldn’t sleep on planes and he’d looked horrified, “But you must sleep, it’s a 17.5 hour flight! You will have very bad jet lag”. Point taken. I will try.

I think I managed 2 hours of very broken sleep which is a record for me. But I’d discovered another perk of business class, an hour’s free WiFi, so I’d managed to connect with Chris in Edinburgh for a quick chat.

Moving on from sleeping, I checked out the business class toilets and nabbed a free toothbrush and toothpaste.

By this time I was into my second block of 5 hours so I watched a few movies. Qatar had a great selection of new releases and the screen was operable either by touch or remote, I loved the noise cancelling headphones.

I started getting hungry again a few hours before landing and ordered breakfast – a fruit platter, pastries and weetbix – made all the more posh by being served on a linen tablecloth with a candle.

All in all the 17.5 hour flight went reasonably quickly, which is no doubt thanks to being in QSuites. I had space to chill out, watch movies, order food, sleep and do work. It was a little like being stuck at home and you can’t get outside because the weather’s bad.

I also got used to ordering food when I was hungry rather than being forced to eat when I wasn’t. To that end, I didn’t feel stuffed when I got off the plane.

Would I fly with Qatar again?

Qatar’s service is pretty hard to beat. They treat you like royalty from start to finish, and nothing is too much trouble. There’s a lot to love about having your own private room in the sky. Now that I’ve done it I wouldn’t hesitate to fly QSuites again if I ever got the chance.

The post Flying Long Haul: Auckland to Doha in Qatar QSuites appeared first on etrip.tips.

It turns out that they were transitioning to being a full service operator and had started offering the lie flat seats in their new Dreamliners at the beginning of the year. After gaining access to the Aspire Lounge for my preflight relaxation, I boarded the flight from Calgary to London’s Gatwick Airport.

Seeing how the plane was so new, the interior was also a pristine example of a late design. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to open each of the cubbies, but I soon located the headphones (triangular brown padded top near my left hip), which came with a bottle of water.

The remote for the entertainment system was tucked away on the benchtop to the right, and was surprisingly roomy. It was also where the headphone socket was.

The roominess became apparent: it was so you could charge your phone and tuck it away inside the cubby while it was charging – closing the lid so no lights interfered with your sleep.

Tucked under the lip of the desktop was a little LCD touchscreen allowing you to alter the layout of the seat, from upright to lie flat and everything in between.

I do enjoy the personal touches, and having your name on screen welcoming you may not mean much but it just added that little extra.

The last cubby I popped open had a mirror and more storage space: I assume for things like glasses etc.

The amenity kit had all the usual offerings: socks, eyemask, earplugs etc. It looked very smart!

On arrival I elected the WestJet signature drink: Gold Peak ice green tea, cranberry juice and a fresh lemon wedge. Very refreshing!

They had the on-demand dining concept going on, and the customer service rep came around noting down my order. They also made a note of whether you wanted to be woken up for the breakfast service and I made sure to get in quick with what I wanted for then too!

Dinner started with truffle oil popcorn and a glass of classic Canadian Dry (ginger ale).

It took me a while to figure out how to get the table out from under the entertainment system. There was a latch you needed to squeeze and pull and out it slid. The lovely rep laid out the full experience of table cloth, my very own bread basket and condiments.

I started with the shrimp and lobster salad and it was incredibly tasty. I could very well had a whole main of just that – healthy too!

I followed that up with the Alberta Short rib, accompanied with roast carrots, spring onions and served on a bed of mash. Delicious.

After dinner I watched a few movies on the entertainment system. When things work perfectly it’s hard to comment on them – a really good selection of things to watch, with maybe the only shortcoming being there were only a few episodes of the TV programs. No way to binge more than a couple of episodes of any series that you really liked. Minor quibble.

When it was getting close to bed time the rep (and I’m kicking myself for not taking a note of her name) came around and asked if I’d like their complimentary turn down service. I readily agreed and in no time at all she’d turned the seat into a bed including the seat topper, blanket and pillows, turned down the blanket invitingly and popped a chocolate on the pillow.

The bed was a good size and the picture below doesn’t quite do it justice (I’m not putting my feet in the void under the entertainment system fully). Once I got fully reclined the seat just accommodated my full 6’4″ 193cm frame. The three point seatbelt had to be worn, but didn’t get in the way. Good design!

I managed to get some sleep over the Atlantic and was eventually woken gently by my Rep. She waited patiently while I took off my eye mask, noise cancelling headphones and took out my earplugs before asking me if I was ready for the breakfast service.

For comic value I should have said No and then replaced earplugs, headphones and eye mask, but truth be told I was a little peckish so agreed that I was and raised my seat into the eating position.

I’d ordered the chocolate banana french toast (because omg, why wouldn’t you?!) and it came with a berry compote. The photos do not do it justice! If that level of sweetness wasn’t doing it for you, it also came with a little bottle of maple syrup. Yum!

So what did I think?

I’ve only really talked about the hard product – the details of the seat and entertainment system. I should really talk about the soft product – the customer service.

My expectation was admittedly low, expecting that as a low cost carrier they would match the surliness of an EasyJet or RyanAir (think Spirit in the US), but they surpassed that even being on par with Qatar. I’m not sure if it was because they were Canadian, but in every interaction with them, the crew came across as friendly and very proficient.

I really wouldn’t hesitate in flying Business Class with WestJet again. Loved the service, loved the food, the seat was comfortable and we arrived on time. What’s not to love?

The post Review: WestJet Calgary to London Business Class appeared first on etrip.tips.

QSuites have been around for a little while and pretty much set the standard for Business Class seat layouts as evidenced by BA recently announcing their new cabin design (https://simpleflying.com/british-airways-club-suite-tour/) which, if not a copy, is a least inspired by the Qatar QSuites Business Class seats.

The point of difference to standard business class is that there is a little wall around your seat which can close off giving you privacy. Like having your own little office.

Qatar has managed to appeal to three groups of passengers – the solo passenger gets privacy, the couple travelling together get an intimate shared sleeping space (the partitions between their seats fold down) and the family or business group of four can fold down the panels between them and play cards or discuss business.

Qatar QSuites Business Class seat layout

The layout is hard to describe, so a screen grab from SeatGuru will illustrate – every other row is backwards.

The 1-2-1 layout means fewer seats but in my case at least, that means more attention from the attendants. Carol introduced herself on my boarding and deposited menus and a hot towel before returning with my welcome drink.

I’d love to be a champagne aficionado because the range of champagnes available on these flights keep those knowledgeable of the differences amused for hours on the travel boards. I stick instead to the non-alcoholic drinks – personal experience reminding me that the only thing worse than a hangover is a hangover in an air conditioned pressurised tube which dehydrates you for 8 hours.

The QSuite seat

The seat looked smaller than the photos I’d seen but as I settled in I could see how that was misleading – the Airbus A350-1000 (in this case A7ANE – almost new beginning service in November 2018), hid most of its 79” length tucked into the foot cavity.

The 21” width made me raise an eyebrow because there was a side ottoman with a lid which folded down to give you more seating right beside you, so it seemed ludicrous that they couldn’t somehow use that additional room to give more width. Especially when other airlines are giving 25” (Singapore) wide Business Class seats.

I must admit that I was looking forward to sleeping on a seat which looked like it might actually be able to accommodate my height!

The curved edge of the console gave exceptional access to the ports, remote and seat controls – in stark contrast to my previous flight. The whole suite just exuded space – there was the table top (currently occupied by the blanket, pillow and amenity kit), a shelf under the table top, the ottoman beside me (currently holding the noise cancelling headphones and a bottle of water).

Qatar had removed the luggage bins above the middle rows of the plane to maximise the airy feeling of space, but I was glad they had kept the ones above the window seats. It definitely didn’t feel smaller for a slightly lower ceiling and I really appreciated having my own personal double-nozzled air flow.

The screen for the entertainment system was touch screen (the one on my previous flight had been too, just too far away to reach!!) and even though there was a remote on a string available, I don’t know why you would bother. Again, the entertainment system was operational from terminal to terminal, so no downtime!

The door closing off the suite from the rest of the plane was only closed after takeoff and I was instructed to only use the gold sliding handle, not the emergency exit handle. In the event of an emergency you’d be able to lift the door out of position and fling it away to assist in escaping the plane, but that would obviously preclude using it for privacy under normal circumstances.

There was a DND (Do Not Disturb) button on the rounded console which I thought amusing – the walls looked high from the seated position, but when standing even my attendant could peer in without standing on tip toes.

Qatar QSuites business class food

After takeoff the food came – served as the previous flight on a lovely table cloth with a flickering electronic candle and accompanied with real cutlery and a basket of warm bread.

My appetisers this time were better than my main – salmon to start with, followed by four of the largest prawns I’ve had on a plane (big and juicy!) and then the beef fillet for a main. Not quite as good as the lamb on the previous flight, but still perfectly serviceable!

The rest of the flight

I managed to get a bit of sleep this time, but the width of the seat again was a little uncomfortable – of note was a three way seat belt with not only a lap belt but also a shoulder belt coming from the seat top and clipping onto the lap belt where it clipped into the seat.

Before landing I had a look around and took a photo of the aisle, or I guess with all the suite doors being closed it was more like a hallway – a bit of a novelty when typically the flight exposes you to all your fellow passengers for the many hours you are together.

I remember one long haul flight trying to get to the bathrooms in the middle of the night, picking my way over people’s feet dangling in the aisle and avoiding tripping on blankets pillows and other detritus like some sort of obstacle course. None of that in the Qatar QSuites Business Class.

It was around this time that I discovered that the Complimentary WiFi was working. You got an hour for free and then they’d charge you for the rest – but that was per device so if you had a couple of devices you could get quite a bit of usage if you really wanted to.

I’m not quite sure what you would need to use the internet for though. I just used it to check in on Facebook from Kirkuk in Iraq, but I guess if you needed to check business emails or had some work that needed doing and sending to someone it would be cool to be able to do that. I suspect since it used satellite technology that it would be slow. My experiences with satellite based wifi haven’t been the best so I left it well alone.

We were on the final part of the journey and I was impressed with the journey tracking part of the entertainment system. You could zoom in or out on the map, you could rotate your view of the plane and surrounds from any angle and you could even select a side of the plane and it would show you which towns or cities were in your field of vision.

I was glad I’d played with that because it allowed me to notice that it was a clear night, and that a little later we were following the Thames into Heathrow. There’s something quite magical about seeing the iconic sights of London from a plane at night.

The Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast, The Shard, The London Eye, the various parks all welcomed me back to the city, and before you knew it Heathrow was reaching up and greeting our wheels.

Conclusion

So the point of the excercise was to compare and contrast the two Business Class offerings of Qatar Airways, so how did they stack up?

The Qatar QSuites Business Class seats really made a difference. Sure, the standard seat was good, but there were a number of reasons you’d have to pick QSuites over standard business class:

• The privacy – it was just so unusual not to have any interaction with any other passengers – no “oh, have you worked out how to plug in the headphones”, no “how do you work this?”, not even seeing the other passengers out of the corner of your eye. From the moment you take your seat to just before you leave it’s like you’re travelling alone.

• The seat – while both seats were a little narrow for me, the design of the QSuites seat meant that it was more comfortable to sleep – the fact that the foot cubby meant that you were legitimately 180 degrees all the way along was way more relaxing than the standard business class offering.

• The space – the standard business class seat was “just” a seat. A good seat, don’t get me wrong, but fundamentally it was a seat. The QSuites seat came with space – with places to put things and to put things away so you didn’t have to see them but could get them without getting up. Hard to explain but so much better for the psyche.

I’d love to have the Qatar QSuites Business Class available for the flights from Doha to Auckland (or reverse) – and hopefully at some stage Qatar Airways provides this option, because if you have to travel for 18 hours on a flight, and have elected to spend the money on business class to do so, it would be great to be able to take advantage of the best in this class of seats.

(Edit – The New Zealand Herald says the Q-Suites will be introduced on the Auckland-to-Doha route from 1 June 2019).

The post Qatar QSuites Business Class Review: Doha to London appeared first on etrip.tips.

This time in my research I discovered that Qatar Airlines business class had a much vaunted service called Q-Suites which looked pretty good. The only problem was that at the time of booking, the flights in and out of Auckland weren’t an aircraft fitted out with Q-Suites.

So while Qatar Airlines were rolling the new fit-out to all their aircraft, the Boeing 777-200LR assigned to the 18 hour Auckland-to-Doha route was still sporting the old layout. (The New Zealand Herald says the Q-Suites will be introduced on the Auckland-to-Doha route from 1 June 2019).

Qatar is part of the One World alliance, and so in Auckland they share the Qantas Business Lounge.

Auckland to Doha

I hasten to add that the “old” layout was certainly no threadbare, poorly upholstered static seat from the 1970s! Oh no – my first leg was on the right hand side of the middle pair of the 2-2-2 layout, all facing forward. The legroom was astronomical!

The particular plane, A7-BBF, had been in service since 2010 and still looked well looked after.

Boarding was as simple as it gets, rolled out of the lounge and headed over to the gate. A brief scan of the ticket and a two minute wait to get through the door (single door on the 777) and then I’m turning left and checking out the cabin.

The seat is supposed to have 78” of pitch and a width of 22”, but with the acres of leg room it some how feels even longer.

The nooks and crannies carved into the middle console did a largely admirable job of allowing storage space and hiding the features that need hiding (the remote and dinner table), but I must admit that the connection for the (noise cancelling) headphones was difficult to access being tucked away near your hip.

Both myself and the lady travelling beside me couldn’t figure out how to connect, even after being told where the socket was by the attendant.

Speaking of which, I can’t speak highly enough of the staff. All the business class flights I’ve taken have prided themselves on their soft product – the service provided by the flight attendants.

Some (looking at you BA) have been a little lacking, but Qatar certainly went out of their way to welcome me onto the flight, thanking me for flying with them just prior to landing and being attentive during meal times.

I saw the breakfast service starting from the front of the plane and dinged my little call button and instead of just getting to me when she got to me, Tania came by and let me know she’d just finish up the other passenger’s meals and then would be right by. Expertly handled!

During the flight I was able to get a steady stream of snacks and drinks and Tania was most apologetic when they only had a medium in the complimentary pyjamas.

We’d looked from the Medium package to my ample bulk and back again and as a tribute to her training she waited until after I had made the comment that we might just need a larger size before laughing. Bonhomie rather than fat-shaming.

Speaking of freebies, rather than making you wait for the distribution of the amenities kit, they were there sitting on the armrest. I briefly looked inside, snapping a pic for Ange.

Inside were socks, eye mask, earplugs (though the noise cancelling headphones were perfect for keeping out the flight noise), Costello Monte Vibiano Vecchio cosmetics (Anti Ageing Moisturiser, Hydrating Facial Mist and Lip Balm) all in an attractive Nappa Dori fabric bag.

The entertainment system was on from the moment we got on the plane which made waiting for takeoff relaxing, as was the welcome drink and hot towel.

We pushed back pretty much on time and set off for one of the longest commercial flights available: across the Tasman to Sydney, across Australia, then swinging up over the Indian Ocean to brush over India and Sri Lanka before the brief dash to the Red Sea and then the kink to avoid flying over any of Qatar’s neighbours as they’re still not on speaking terms.

This flight was also supposed to have Complientary WiFi, but every couple of hours when I checked it only ever came up with a “temporarily unavailable” page saying the internet was unavailable. Definitely first world problems!

I’ve been largely impressed by the food offerings on the Business class flights I’ve been taking, but the food on the Qatar Airlines business class flight was a half step above the others.

First of all they have an à la carte concept where they make what you want when you want it – so you get to eat when it makes sense to your own body clock.

Just be warned – your best intentions are likely to go out the window when you see other people being served theirs and the delicious smells start wafting towards you!

The prawn appetiser was yum, and they provided a little basket of three breads with a choice of dipping oils which meant that regardless of how small the mains and appetisers were, you wouldn’t be going hungry.

I was particularly impressed by my main of lamb ravioli accompanied by my choice of ketchup or mustard. I’d like to take credit for the tastefully applied mustard but the star of the show was not my condiment application, but the lamb and ravioli.

I think it was the textures that played off each other so well, or it might have been the sweetness of the carbs in the ravioli allowing the slightly saltiness of the lamb to really shine – I’m not sure, but it was really good.

I did try to go to sleep a few times (that’s one of the ways I justify travelling business class to myself – I cant sleep in economy). Tania had prepped my bed with the thin mattress topper and I got the blanket out and made sure the seatbelt was visible, but sleep just wouldn’t come.

I cant blame the bed – though with my size the 22” width did feel a little constricted – as it wasn’t hugely different than any of the other business class flights I’ve taken.

The seat itself lowered from the level used as a seat, but even so the leg section did angle down, making the lying angle less than 180 degrees. I found out later that the trick is to get the seat into bed node (single button for that), then alter the position of the seat back a little followed by raising the footrest – this made it closer to totally lie flat.

With sleep not coming (and again, not blaming the seats for this one), I elected to watch movies and snack. The attendants were most attentive, topping up my crisps and ginger ales plus offering me a wide range of cookies.

Embarrassingly it seems the more space I get for my travels the less sleep I end up getting. Very hard to feel hard done by though, and I’m certainly not complaining!

Eventually after fifteen or sixteen hours of flying I finally felt like I was ready to drift off, and then the lights started to come up indicating we should get ready for breakfast and then landing. Mutter mutter mutter.

At breakfast I asked what the options were and Tania read them out. She was incredulous that I would consider the Arabian breakfast and after checking the menu I can see why.

Feta cheese, cucumbers, tomato and green olives with foul medames and Arabic bread. Foul medames is a dish of seasoned fava beans. Certainly not the full English! I elected for the standard cooked breakfast which was an omelette with hashbrown, mushroom and a sausage. Pretty standard stuff.

We landed not long after and I deplaned with everyone else and noticed that we were a long way from the terminal. Yup, no airbridge, which meant that, yes, a mobile staircase with buses waited below.

We headed down and as I arrived at the bottom the first bus’ doors closed indicating that it was full. I was a little surprised as there weren’t that many people in front of me and all of them were business class passengers.

As I got on to the second bus I could see why so few could fit on: this was not your large people moving bus, this was a leather chaired ample room luxury shuttle.

I was first on and grabbed a seat near the front, and even in my sleep deprived state (awake for 8 hours pre-flight, 18 hours on the flight), I kept an eye out for anyone old, infirm or with baby that needed my seat more than I did. I felt ok – the general out of body experience from lack of sleep aside.

The short trip across to the terminal was frustratingly long – I could see out the front window past the driver and there were traffic lights, other vehicles and frequent usages of the universal hand gestures for “wtf are you doing?”.

Eventually (10 – 20 minutes later) we were released at the doors to the terminal and joined a large mass of humanity ascending escalators to the arrivals area.

Eighteen hours is a long time to be in a plane. I would have liked to have been able to sleep, but failing that my trip was about as good as it could have gone. I also had a great benchmark for comparing the QSuites on my admittedly shorter hop from Doha to London. But first, the Qatar Airlines business class lounge!

The post Qatar Airlines Business Class: Auckland to Doha appeared first on etrip.tips.

Some Business Class offerings stand out as being cheaper than the rest – most notably in my experience the Chinese carriers (China Southern, China Eastern and Air China) but also Philippine Airlines.

I wasn’t an enthusiastic booker. My research had brought up that the seats weren’t 180° lie flat which made me imagine sliding off the seat during the night and the cabin being full of passengers slumped on the floor by the time breakfast came around.

There were also mixed reviews of the Business Class offering with scathing comments about the seats on the Airbus A321. So I was glad when I checked out the flight on SeatGuru and found that the MNL-AKL route was served by an Airbus A330-300 with the Business Class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration – definitely not the A321.

Manila Domestic Airport Terminal 4

I made soooo many mistakes in the build up to the flight. We had arrived on a domestic flight into Manila’s Terminal 4 and were just about to leave the terminal after collecting our luggage so that we could find the shuttle bus to the international terminal (Terminal 2), when it occurred to me to ask a security guard where the shuttle bus departed from.

The apron outside the security check point was crowded with people so it was a relief when he indicated we should go back inside the building and talk to a staff member inside. We were directed to a small waiting room separated from the runway by a paper thin wall so that I was convinced a plane would come through the wall, they sounded so loud.

Almost as loud as the children playing while their parents wearily slumped on top of their suitcases, waiting in their seats for their transfer to one of the other terminals. The air con was made for a much larger room and so I made sure to sit in one of the few seats that weren’t directly in front of one of the units. And so we waited. And waited.

Eventually the staff member came past and took away the family and some other passengers joined us – as the staff member left he turned to us and let us know if would be another 20 minutes before our transfer would be there. We had plenty of time and I kept telling myself that worst case scenario we could walk the few kilometres to the other terminal.

Thirty minutes later we were lead out past the luggage reclaim to the exit and along the footpath, ducking all manner of materials being placed in the x-ray machines which served as the pre security screening. I made sure to keep our guide in sight and as we approached a bus he turned slightly, told everyone in our group that the bus was for Terminals 1, 2 & 3 and then headed back to the air conditioned comfort of the terminal building.

We, along with the other passengers, got on board and crammed ourselves in.  With a slamming of doors and a slight lurch we headed out into Manila Airport traffic.

It quickly became apparent how foolish it would have been to walk. First of all there were no real footpaths, second of all the heat was unbearable and third of all the  traffic had a logic all of its own. I was thankful that we’d researched the situation before hand and had built in enough of a buffer to accomodate the transfer in terminals, even though the distance as the crow flies was only a few kilometres.

Manila International Airport Terminal 1

I was feeling pretty happy with myself up until we dropped off all the other passengers at Terminal 1 and the driver came back to where we were sitting and asked us where we were going. Smiling we said Terminal 2.

His face dropped. I do Terminal 1 and 3 he said. There’s a different shuttle for Terminal 2. Ange and I looked at each other and shrugged. I turned back to the driver and told him that the guy from Terminal 4 had pointed at his bus and said Terminals 1, 2 & 3. He looked frustrated and told us to move our luggage to the front of the bus and to sit close to him.

We shrugged and complied and then watched as he opened the doors to the passengers getting on at Terminal 1. It was amazing as the security guards handling the queues allowed the passengers on one at a time and the bus driver accepted their luggage and stacked it expertly into a tower almost to the ceiling.

In the early evening heat he soon worked up a sweat from the luggage handling and we could see why he had gone to great pains to ensure that our luggage was separate from the new passengers. Eventually he indicated that he could not squeeze anyone else in, and the queue boarding halted.

Manila International Airport Terminal 2

We then went back out in the the traffic and headed over to Terminal 2. This shortest of trips took the longest with the traffic coordinated by shotgun wielding security guards and much honking and hollering. With an exasperated sigh the driver yanked on the handle and we were deposited into the seething cauldron of people welcoming new arrivals, farewelling relatives and taxi drivers touting for business. It felt safe but busy – a more compressed version of a UK airport but with climate akin to walking through a warm bath.

Another mistake – I didn’t notice the lifts up to the departures level from where we were dropped off on the arrivals level. This necessitated us navigating our way from one end of the concourse to the other through the crowds until we found some escalators heading up and then walking the same distance on he correct level to the front doors. By that time our elbow room when it came to time buffer had evaporated and we were only three hours before flight time.

Yet another mistake: I didn’t notice the separate gate for all Business Class passengers. Apparently it was right in front of the entrance in the most obvious place imaginable. Nope: I missed it, found which check in desk was for our flight and then proceeded to walk again the full length of the terminal to the gate. And then waited in line with everybody else before being told that we could have gone straight through if I had seen the entrance. To add insult to injury, then Business Class lounge was all the way on  the other side of the terminal.

Philippine Airlines Business Class Lounge – Mabhuhay

Now closer to two hours before our 10 hour flight to Auckland, so we tried to settle into the Business Class Lounge, have a bite to eat and enjoy our last tastes of the Philippines. It proved harder than it sounds: the Mabuhay lounge was on the small side so we had to wait a while before seats became available. My research had indicated that the lounge was on the… more budget end of the spectrum and this proved to be the case.

Limited food and drink options, few seats and initially at least a crowded jostling vibe meant that it was only just more relaxing than it had been outside. OK that’s unfair – but until the lounge started to empty out it was very hard to relax.

Business Class on the Airbus A330-300

So you can imagine my surprise when the actual flight was really really good. Getting on board the plane was quick and easy and then we saw the seat. OMG the leg room was amazing.

You could have put nine economy class seats in the space our two took. And the seat controls even had a vibrating lumbar setting!

Ange straight away tried the full recline and found it very comfortable.

I gave it a go as well but instead of folding down flat, my seat just kept raising higher and higher, much to Ange’s amusement.

I decided to stop playing with the seat and put it back to an armchair mode while the air crew served fresh juice and helped the other passengers stow their luggage.

I was just starting to look around for the entertainment system when the crew came around with an iPad and personal headphones. My first time with that sort of set up, but I did appreciate not having a restricted set of viewing angles, which you tend to get when the screen is fixed to the back of the seat in front or attached to an arm on your own seat.

More hilarity ensued when we were given slippers for the flight. One size fits all is a joke for both me and Ange – her because the slippers are inevitably too big, and myself for the opposite reason. I had to snap a shot to illustrate this.

Amenities Kit

The hilarity soon changed to excitement for Ange as the amenities kit came out and she found it was L’Occitane.

The kit included:

• an eyemask,
• toothbrush and toothpaste,
• 3 little tubes of L’Occitane cosmetics (skin creme, moisturiser and perfume)
• plus a folding hairbrush which I, being follicly challenged, very kindly offered to Ange.

Dinner

The food was scrummy and there was a lot of it – starting with a cold platter of Chicken Galantine and Marinated Prawn Salad. Then came a Chicken and Prawn Baguette.

For the mains Ange chose the Prawn Cakes while I selected the Roast Pork in Maple Glaze and we shared the dessert of the Mango Crepe Samurai accompanied by a delectable ice cream.

Certainly no complaints here!

Lie Flat Bed

After dinner the lights in the cabin dimmed and most people attempted to set themselves up for bed.

The person across from us tried without success to get their bed to fold down, but like mine had previously it refused to behave. The air crew came over and took the cushions off the seat and tinkered with it and it worked after that.

So I called them over and asked if they could do the same for mine. It turns out that the layout of the cabin was a little old and that the seats would periodically need resetting, and that the only way to do that was to take the cushioning off them and hold down a button for a couple of seconds.

The comparison with the BA flight we’d taken only a few days ago was stark. The Philippine Airlines seat had more length, more width and although was on a slight angle, certainly didn’t feel like I was going to slide off. More importantly whereas the BA seat seemed to be designed to punish anyone over 6 foot tall, the Philippine Airlines one felt like there were enough options in terms of how to position one’s body so that a good sleep was possible.

Before I knew it, it was four hours later and the lighting in the  cabin was slowly growing, people were getting up to use the bathrooms and the crew were coming around with juice and hot towels.

Breakfast

While accepting the juice and towel, I remained reclined, burrowed into the blankets – still trying to hang on to the last warm comforts of sleep. Until the breakfast came around of course.

Ange didn’t go any further than the fruit platter and cereal (still being full from dinner).

I elected to try both the selection of breads plus the Kielbasa sausage and poached egg which came with caramelised onions and potato rösti. Nom nom nom!!

Soon, with the dishes cleared away and seats in upright mode, we were approaching the coast of New Zealand.

The Filipinos are known for their hospitality and service and the crew had been nothing but professional and attentive. Even the more demanding of our fellow passengers had been given great service with a smile.

Final thoughts

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the flight – I’d always looked down my nose at slightly angled 180 degree seat arrangement, seeing it as a substandard offering. With the proof of the pudding well and truly tasted, it was great to have Philippine Airlines as an option for cheap Business Class flights into or out of Auckland.

The post Cheap Business Class Flights? Philippine Airlines: Manila to Auckland appeared first on etrip.tips.

A very enjoyable summer, and made even more enjoyable by planning the flights carefully so that I could collect points by flying BA and using my British Airways American Express to pay for it all.

By hitting the spending requirements, I nabbed a Companion Fare which meant that we could then pay for any flight in any cabin on BA tin (i.e. not a code share flight) and Ange could come along in the same cabin for free as long as we paid the taxes.

While we couldn’t get all the way from London to Auckland, we could at least get to Bangkok flying BA business class with the points we had accumulated.

BA Business Class Lounge – Heathrow

The flight started three hours earlier with the BA lounge. We’d stayed at a Heathrow airport hotel the night before so had plenty of time to make our leisurely way to Terminal 5 and then into the lounge in the southern end of the terminal.

Up the escalators we went, the last time I had been there had been as a guest of Ben my companion when I had been to China, and while the place hadn’t changed much, this time around it was a lot busier.

The food and drink situation was good – an adequate selection of dishes in small bowls which were kept topped up by efficient staff meant that you were never waiting too long.

If you were only after a snack and the rice-based curry dishes didn’t appeal, there were salads and pasta, plus cafe style muffins and crisps nearby.

An impressive selection of top shelf spirits accompanied a variety of wines and non alcoholic beverages, coffee, teas etc. so there was definitely something there for everyone.

The lounge was big enough to enjoy a range of seating options, from an eating area just inside the doors, to a more comfortable armchair area overlooking the tarmac.

There was a media room which had its TV turned off allowing the couches to be used as makeshift bedding. We eventually found seats together, though the place was so packed we couldn’t help but overhear the pre-business trip briefing of a trio of businessmen heading over to Europe. Enough time to do a bit of work ourselves before it was time to head to the gate for boarding.

I haven’t earned enough points to be able to use the Priority queue for boarding – the only time I can skip to the front is when I have a business class ticket, and it’s always nice not to have to wait in the queue and just board straight away.

Judging from the look on Ange’s face she was enjoying the experience as well!

BA Business Class Cabin

Our Boeing 777-200 had its BA business class seats in pairs, one facing forwards and its neighbour facing backwards.

A sliding screen separated them but it was disconcerting when it was lowered for meal times and when arranging bedding. Eye contact with the neighbour a continual awkwardness!

Speaking of bedding, a thin mattress, blanket and pillow competed for space in and around the seat, so that even after you had settled in there was paraphernalia everywhere, and nowhere to put it all.

There was a slide out drawer but it didn’t hold much. The fold down foot stool near the entrance to your little cubicle held the magazines and safety cards.

The seat controls were on a strip below the privacy partition, with numerous presets and special controls for neck and lumbar support.

The instruction booklet went into quite some detail on how the seat/bed operated  and while it was a little narrow for my ample frame, it was quite comfortable while sipping on the complimentary wine and juice.

The amenity kit was by The White Company (as was the bedding), and contained what you would expect:

• socks
• eye mask
• earplugs
• a pen
• toothbrush and toothpaste
• a three pack of cosmetics (SPA brand).

All in a fetching little sponge bag/wallet thing.

The foot stool folded down to allow it to be used as a foot rest (more on that later), though it took me a while to get it to stay up.

There was a trick to it but it seemed to me that it might have been broken.

Ange laughed at my attempts to make it work – and I felt like one of the apes discovering how to use tools from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Hmph! Finally able to get it to click into place, I elected to try and lay the bed flat. This I was able to do, but as I am a little taller than most, I immediately discovered that the bed wasn’t really built for someone of my size.

Even with my legs bent, my feet were flush with the wall above the footrest while my body was jammed pretty solidly into the bed.

And if I straightened my legs, my head dangled off the edge of the seat, unsupported. I elected to try and shorten my neck so that my head could rest on the pillow, but I could see how this flight might start to get quite uncomfortable.

Still, no use prejudging it – there were meals to eat, after all!

BA Business Class Food

I had the crayfish followed by the beef and Ange had the beetroot salad followed by the deep fried chicken.

No complaints there!

To finish, the custard tart with a raspberry and basil confit. Très délicieux!

After dinner we elected to try and get some sleep. That’s when I discovered my suspicions were proved correct.

I was longer than the bed was, and the angle of the upper part of the bed meant that my either my neck and head popped out the top and were unsupported, or else my legs were folded in on themselves with no space to move.

In the end after hours of tossing and turning, I ended up folding the footstool up and having my feet on the ground with my knees bending at an awkward angle. Not much fun and not much sleep to be had.

In the morning I tried to cheer myself up with a full English breakfast, while Ange had the Continental.

But I had been looking forward to being able to get some sleep on the plane so my inability to achieve that really made the rest of the day catching the connecting flight a grumpy grumbly affair.

It turns out that Ange hadn’t really got much sleep either though she tried to perk herself up with a cup of tea!

We did get preferential treatment in Bangkok though – a special queue to get through to International Transfers that we almost missed because of the signage. Credit to Ange’s superior eyesight for that one!

So the verdict?

In a word – disappointing.

I had high hopes for the UK’s national carrier. The BA business class seat just wasn’t designed for tall people, so my expectation of sleep was well and truly unfulfilled. We were also blessed with a crew member with a real chip on her shoulder – obviously the exception rather than the rule because the other staff in the cabin were fine.

I’d be keen to give one of the other cabin layouts a go, one with a more up-to-date seat perhaps. Maybe next time!

The post Not So Comfy BA Business Class: London to Bangkok Flight Review appeared first on etrip.tips.

So when Ange mentioned trying the Air NZ Skycouch on our trip from Auckland to San Francisco, I was definitely keen to find out more.

What is the Air NZ Skycouch?

The Skycouch is basically a row of three seats in economy class which have been slightly modified to allow the foot rests to pop up horizontally in line with the seat. You do this with the touch of a button on the armrest to make a lie flat sleeping surface.

They give you a thin mattress to even out the gaps between the seats and the arm rests fold up nicely to allow a continuous surface.

They also give you an additional safety seatbelt which allows a flexible arranging of passengers in various lying/sitting positions.

Skycouch Cost

So how does the cost stack up versus the alternatives? To give context, an economy class seat one way on Air New Zealand currently costs $699 (search on AirNZ website on the 7th May 2018, for flight one way AKL-SFO for the 29th October NZ$).

To get a single Air NZ Premium Economy seat on the same flight costs $2,183 and Business Class would cost $4,283.

When we flew we managed to get a special and so got our two tickets for $1,143 and the SkyCouch extra seat for $649 for a total Skycouch cost of $1,792.

I would imagine the standard fare for a SkyCouch row if there was no sale on would be about $2,097 (3x$699).

So effectively your three seats for two people are setting you back a little less than one Premium Economy seat or half a Business Class seat.

Skycouch Comfort

So is it any good? Like most things it depends. But with the Air NZ Skycouch it depends purely on how tall you are, and how bendy you are.

I’m tall (6’4″/193cm) and obviously was never going to fit on the SkyCouch in full extension – some form of body folding would be required.

I assumed that I would be able to lean against the bulkhead and just have my legs going across the seat, having Ange using me as a pillow.

That didn’t work because the bulkhead is not uniformly curved and padded and nice to lean against. Its got windows in it.

I tried to get comfortable with a lower head position, effectively only having my neck and head on the bulkhead, but all that did was make my body like a torque wrench attempting to twist my head off my neck.

Finally I jammed my head into the corner of the seat where it joined the bulkhead – not comfortable, but at least some support. I thought that if I concertinaed my legs then Ange could kind of fit around them, but all that happened was I ended up taking way too much of the space and leaving Ange with no room to relax.

We did try every combination of positioning, but even with our combined tetris abilities, we couldn’t make it work.

In the end I squashed myself into two of the seats with my knees up in the air and Ange sat on the third seat in normal configuration and powered through the flight watching movies and reading her kindle. I got some sleep, but I’m not sure how much.

I owe Ange one for that I think!

A travel agent friend of mine had an important pointer as well:

One thing to also note, the seats in front of you still recline. Never lie curled up with your head near the seats in front, if they recline you get quite a headache. Learned that one from experience.

Skycouch Amenities

With Skycouch you get standard Economy food, you board with the Economy passengers, you don’t get any lounge access. No amenity kit either.

Summary

Is the Air NZ Skycouch worth it? No – not for me. If you’re travelling with a tall person or as a tall person, forget it. If you’re travelling as a couple and are both “normal” sized, then… maybe? If either of you are tall or not whippet thin, then you’ll probably find it difficult to get any sleep. If you don’t want sleep and just want more leg room space or to spread out a bit more, it’s perfect!

The post Air NZ Skycouch: Flying Cuddle Class to San Francisco appeared first on etrip.tips.

There are a number of options to get to Auckland from Dubai on a lie flat bed (search results from Skyscanner for travel 4 months in advance, just for comparative purposes):

• Emirates flies direct in under 16 hours but at NZ$6k per seat it’s a bit pricey
• Singapore Airlines stops off in Singapore will get you there in 18 ½ hours for NZ$3.3k
• Thai Airways stops off in Bangkok and does the trip in less than 30 hours for NZ$3k
• China Southern was very reasonably priced at NZ$2.9k with one stop over in their hub in Guangzhou taking 31 hours
• Etihad will get you to take a bus to Abu Dhabi then a stopover in Hong Kong – all up 33 hours and a shade over NZ$5k
• Air China stops off in Peking, taking 33½ hours for NZ$5.5k
• Korean Air takes longer – 37 hours with a stopover in Incheon but a reasonable NZ$4.3k
• Cathay was the cheapest though, less than 28 hours with a stopover in Hong Kong for NZ$2.5k.

In our case (because of Christmas) the search engines were bringing up prices for Cathay of NZ$3.5k pp. I reached out to my travel agent and was surprised that he was able to get it cheaper, coming in at NZ$6.3k all up.

So for our NZ$6.3k (£3.2k/US$4.6k) we’d get

• access to a business class lounge in Dubai
• lie flat beds for 7½hours on CX0738 in one of Cathay’s A330-300 Airbuses
• three and a half hours in one of Cathay’s four lounges in Hong Kong
• another lie flat bed for 11¼ hours on CX0199 in the A350-900.

I figured we’d have to get some sleep with all that lying down!!

So that was the plan… but the universe hasn’t met a plan it can’t derail.

Business Class Check-in Dubai

We rocked up to the Business class check-in at Dubai well and truly early. I figured to maximise our time in the Lounge (free food! free drinks!) we’d try checking in early. Understandably the lady at check-in said that we were too early, so we headed upstairs to watch the planes taking off and to do some work.

We settled for a small snack to tide us over, and then at the appointed hour we headed back down and queued.

We were second in line behind a slim middle aged man, and when they opened both Business class check-in desks we could overhear his conversation. He was apparently irate that he wasn’t able to get a boarding pass for his onward journey – the staff member had first said that it was because the onward flight was full and then changed her story, and that it was because it was too early.

Angrily realising that he was making a scene, he muttered “they’re two different things – which is it?” before heading off up the stairs towards the lounges. The lady serving us said that we’d have to get our onward (HKG-AKL) boarding pass from the transfer desk in Hong Kong.

I was a little uneasy – this was the first time this had ever happened so I wasn’t sure if it was an operational issue or something I needed to worry about. More importantly I didn’t want to worry Ange if it wasn’t needed. So we ensured that we wouldn’t have to collect our luggage in Hong Kong and recheck it and then headed up to the lounge.

Lufthansa Business Class Lounge Dubai

We had a few dirhams left from Dubai, so we stopped off in one of the many souvenir shops just after the security checkpoint and tried to find something worthy of what notes we had remaining. I eventually settled on a couple of toy camels which would use up most of my money, and then we made our way up the escalators and down a seemingly never ending corridor towards the Lufthansa Lounge.

Cathay don’t have enough business class passengers travelling from Dubai to justify having their own lounge, so they have an arrangement with a couple of other airlines to share theirs. Our flight was assigned the Lufthansa one and I was looking forward to showing Ange how Business class passengers were treated (my memories of the United Lounge at Heathrow top of my mind).

I must admit to being a little let down – the spaciousness and facilities from the United Lounge weren’t replicated here. Don’t get me wrong – the comfy chairs with USB and power points at each were better than sitting in a crowded and noisy terminal, but it proved to me that there were lounges and then there were lounges.

We’d made a point of getting there early and it proved a good idea. While there was a very good variety of food available, there really wasn’t a whole lot of it. As the lounge began to fill up we appreciated the opportunity that we’d had on arriving first to sample whatever we liked, as towards the end there wasn’t much of anything!

The food itself was simple but good and the staff were constantly in motion from the kitchens, replenishing the small plates.

We kept one eye on the Departures board at the reception and when our flight showed up as Boarding, we headed down to the gate. I was explaining to Ange as we went that we could afford to wait a bit longer in the lounge as the timings of loading would be dictated by getting all the Economy passengers on. She smiled and explained that she was keen on checking out the seat.

I grinned as we approached the gate and saw the snaking line of passengers waiting to board. Normally such a sight would fill me with dread for the impending wait, and I knew that’s what Ange would be feeling. But the Business class desk was empty and so we barely slowed down and then we were aboard.

Funnily enough, although the First and Business class passengers have their own airbridge, the Business class seats are split across two sections, one up front and the other after the Premium and Economy class airbridge joins the plane.

We were in the second section and so traipsed through the entire other Business section to get to our seats. It would have been quicker to just have used the Premium/Economy airbridge…

The Seat

The seat itself is in a herring bone layout which just means that it’s sitting at an angle. It’s laid out in a 1-2-1 formation and Ange and I were fortunate enough to get adjoining seats, but if you were travelling alone there’s plenty of privacy: the seats are angled away from each other.

The Panel

Tucked away is the command centre of the seat, the panel. Here you find a reading light, a phone/remote control which pops out of the panel and is connected by a retractable cord, the seat control, a UK power point and collection of audio and USB ports.

Cleverly tucked away was a little closet with a fancy set of headphones hanging inside. The inside of the door was mirrored so if you wanted to see if you had any spinach stuck in your teeth after dinner you wouldn’t have to get up to go to the bathroom.

The Amenity Bag

I’d told Ange about the amenity bags that I’d got from Air China and so she was quite looking forward to the goodies and so after an initial inspection of the seat when she couldn’t find them she looked at me quizzically and asked if I knew where they were.

I looked around and couldn’t find them so said that I didn’t know – maybe Cathay didn’t do them? Not long after that the customer services rep came through the cabin handing them out and order was restored.

So, what do you get in the amenity bag?

• travel socks
• eye mask
• ear plugs
• toothbrush
• toothpaste
• mouthwash
• restoring mist
• lip gel
• moisturiser

The beauty products, Ange assured me, were a good quality brand (Jurlique) – I wouldn’t know…

The Food

We eat with our eyes. There are a bunch of scientific studies that indicate that food presented well is reported as tasting better. Further studies show that having food with decent cutlery actually makes the food taste better too. Even bearing those two studies in mind, I still think that the food in Business is better than that in Economy. But I’m open to it being all psychological.

The Bed

The mere fact that you are fully reclined makes sleep possible for me. And that means a lot. The Cathay seat on the A330-300 has a cubby at the end of the bed where tall people put their feet, so that does restrict movement a little when you’re fully stretched out.

Apart from that, the seat/mattress is comfortable enough and the duvet is particularly nice. Even with the seatbelt on it is possible to find a couple of comfortable positions.

Hong Kong

Still a bit groggy from the flight, we made our way off the flight. Being very near the door for the Economy airbridge we were pretty much first off and headed towards the terminal.

I kept repeating “Transfer Desk, Transfer Desk” to myself so that I wouldn’t forget and end up on the streets of Hong Kong, but I needn’t have bothered.

A pair of Cathay staff were waiting for us just inside the terminal with a sign with our names on it. We identified us and they walked us to the Transfer Desk but I was a little worried that they had felt the need to ensure that we made it to the Transfer Desk.

We soon found out why.

“I’m very sorry sir, your flight is full in Business Class and you have been selected for moving to economy class.”

Oh wow I thought, this sucks – I guess this is what happened to the other guy in Dubai and why we weren’t able to get boarding passes printed.

“We’ll give you compensation for swapping you to Economy sir”. I look over at Ange – this was supposed to be her Christmas present!

Uh, is it possible to get us in business class on a later flight? I ask. The lady behind the counter looks uncomfortable and says that as it’s Christmas time all the other flights to Auckland are full. I’m tempted to say that’s fine, we’ll wait (expecting them to pick up the tab for a hotel room while we wait) but the fact that it’s only a week before Christmas makes me reconsider – getting home together in time for Christmas is slightly more important than travelling business class.

“We of course will offer you compensation” repeats the lady behind the counter, reading out some numbers. I plug them into my foreign exchange converter and it comes to $400. “That’s each” she says, beaming. I frown at her – that’s a bit of a slap in the face – bumping us down to Economy and then offering a pittance. She seems taken back, as if we should be very happy for the offer, and tells us that the amount they’re offering is the difference between the last minute Business Class fares on this leg and the last minute Economy seats.

One of the other staff at the Transfer desk comes over and asks how essential it is that we travel in the same cabin. I look over at Ange and she shakes her head – images of splitting the time in Business Class fleetingly pass through my mind.

What about Premium Economy I ask? Do you have two seats there? A quick look through the computer tells us that there’s nothing available there.

The team leader chats with our original staff member and comes over with a piece of paper. This is the amount we’re offering you she says and I look down. There are more numbers there than previously mentioned and I plug these into the Foreign Exchange app on our iPhone. My eyes widen. The original lady had put the decimal point in the wrong place.

The amount of Hong Kong Dollars that they are offering in compensation translates to close to NZ$8,000 – close to NZ$2k more than what we’d paid for the complete trip for both of us.

I nod, now understanding their reaction and ask if we can have a minute to discuss the offer.

Our first choice would, of course, be to do the Business Class trip, but if we rolled the dice and gambled on there being a pair of cancellations in Business class between now and Christmas, then we may end up stuck in Hong Kong, especially if there were no available Economy seats!

Better to take the money and run – a totally free Business Class experience from Dubai to Hong Kong might be worth the misery of Economy for 12 hours to Auckland. Maybe. I apologised to Ange and said that I guess it was only half the Christmas present I had promised, but she was good about it.

Begrudgingly we agreed. We were allowed in the Business Class Lounge while we waited, and at the last minute they would see if anyone was a no-show in Business Class. If there were two no-shows in Business, they would give us those seats, but otherwise they would give us envelopes with HK$ in them and two boarding passes for Economy class seats. They’d try to give us exit row seats.

The Wing: Business Class Lounge in Hong Kong

The circumstances tainted the lounge experience at Hong Kong, which was a pity. Cathay has four business class lounges at Hong Kong, and we were directed to The Wing, which was an airy, spacious collection of comfortable couches and work areas. In addition to the standard array of food and beverages that the Lufthansa lounge had offered in Dubai, it also offered a Noodle Bar where chef’s would make you your noodles to your liking.

If we’d been heading home in luxury, I would have been nudging Ange and saying annoying things like “this is more like it, aye?”, but as it was it felt more funereal. Like we’d won the reverse lottery.

As our flight time approached I started heading up to the counter at reception to enquire what time we should head down to the gate. I kept getting told to come back in twenty minutes. I guess they wanted to ensure they’d had every opportunity for someone to be a no-show and get them off the hook for the compensation payment.

The flight now said “Final Call” and as I headed up to the receptionist she beckoned me over and proceeded to count out the Hong Kong dollars, and to get me to sign a form to show that I had received the cash.

Beep! Beep!

Then we were sent downstairs where a golf cart was waiting to whisk us across the terminal to our gate. I’ve seen people using the carts before in other airports and always thought they were for those who were too confused to navigate the airport, or too large or old or had mobility issues.

It was a novelty for me to be on one: I loved it and had to take a time lapse of it: apparently they’re not allowed to take the carts on the travelators – my argument that it would make the trip quicker didn’t sway our driver at all. Maybe next time…

There was only a small line waiting for boarding – most passengers were well and truly aboard by that stage, and while we weren’t last on, there were only a few people behind us.

We had managed to get seats by the emergency exit, and on the Airbus A350-900 this means that there was room enough to really stretch out.

It’s a double edged sword though, as most people used that area as a waiting spot for the toilets. It also means that instead of an entertainment screen which is on the back of the seat in front of you, it folds away into the arm of the seat, and you can’t use it during take off and landing.

Food

OK, so there was no napkins or tablecloth like we got in Business, and the cutlery was plastic and not metal, and the presentation was in plastic containers, but the food itself was OK. Probably not quite as nice as in Business, but still perfectly edible.

Sleep Would Be Good

After the light meal, they dimmed the cabin lights and people tried to sleep as best they could. Dozing was probably the best I could do – I’m 6’4″ (193cm) and there’s usually no neck support on airline seats for me, but I was surprised that Ange wasn’t able to do better sleep-wise.

For her it’s the noise of the engines and sitting upright. We hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep on the first leg from Dubai (maybe because of the excitement of being in Business Class?) and so the next twelve hours were pretty hellish.

We’d gotten maybe two or three hours sleep on the Dubai – Hong Kong leg, spent three and a half hours in Hong Kong at the lounge and that was all after a full day in Dubai, so we were struggling with maybe three hours sleep over a forty hour period. I don’t know about Ange but I was pretty ratty towards the end there.

Mercifully, eventually, the cabin lights came back up and thoughts turned to breakfast. I find that sleep deprivation can be countered to a certain extent by maintaining blood-sugar levels, so I figured things would be better after breakfast. I hadn’t considered that every man and his dog would now need to use the toilets and decide to congregate right beside us. Sigh!

Arrival

Despite having an exit row seat, the emergency exit precluded a view outside, so we didn’t get to recognise landmarks as we approached Auckland, but they did have cameras in the body of the plane so that you could follow the progress as we got closer.

The hot breakfast of sausage and omelette made me feel almost human, and I guess the excitement of finally being home also added to the ability to think and operate.

Once we landed and taxied to the terminal, we waited to be allowed to depart. I tried not to think “if we were in Business class, we’d be off by now”, and instead concentrated on the fact that the Business class passengers would be waiting for the luggage at the same conveyor belt that we would be soon enough!

Getting Bumped

So this is the bit where I wax lyrical about how getting bumped from Business class was the best thing that could have happened and it gave me a greater appreciation for when I do travel in premium classes. Bullshit. I wanted to share the experience of travelling Business class with Ange plus get some sleep on the flights and I paid for it, so despite a getting sizeable chunk of cash back, I didn’t get what I really wanted.

I checked in with my travel agent to see what the story was. He told me that airlines overbook Business as well as Economy and they get to decide who they bump. It happens: deal with it.

I then did a little research and found some truly alarming stories of different airlines not being quite so generous with their compensation offers – in fact European Union law says that airlines only have to give a compensation amount equal to:

• For short-haul flights of less than 1,500km, you will receive 30% of the price of the flight.

• For medium-haul flights of 1,500km – 3,500km, or flights within the EU of more than 1,500km, you will receive 50% of the price of the flight.

• For long haul flights of more than 3,500km, you will receive 75% of the price of the flight.

  It is likely you will only receive a refund for the portion of your journey that was downgraded. For instance, if you booked a return ticket for £1,000, but were only downgraded on the return leg, your reimbursement may be calculated as a percentage of £500.

So, I must admit that after I got over the disappointment of getting downgraded, I think Cathay’s compensation policy was possibly the best I could have expected.

The post Review: Cathay Pacific Business Class Dubai to Auckland (Bumped!) appeared first on etrip.tips.

After checking out early from Orsa Maggiore Hostel for Women Only, I catch the no. 280 bus to Ostiense station. From here you can catch a train to Fiumicino Airport at a slightly cheaper cost than from Termini, €8 instead of €14. What I don’t know is that it’s also used by commuters, so I can’t get onto the first train that comes, and only just manage to squeeze onto the second one.

We’re packed in like sardines, but most people pile out 2 stops from Fiumicino to Parco Leonardo, which looks like some kind of industrial park, but upon later investigation I find is a pedestrian city with shops and offices.

I’m flying to Catania from Rome using Vueling which is a Spanish low-cost airline that I haven’t flown with before. There’s no one queuing at check-in so I breeze through, negotiate security and head to Gate D09 to wait for the flight.

There are work stations so I set myself up with my laptop and soon I’m immersed in what I’m doing so I don’t see that the gate has changed to D06. No harm done though and it’s not the airline’s fault. There are a few more incidents though that start to make me think that they are connected to the airline.

Once we’re seated, even though we’re on time and ready to go we have to wait for 35 minutes on the tarmac for a slot to get airborne. The captain tells us the situation and says he’ll update us but never comes back on air.

An older Italian gentleman next to me starts getting antsy and enquires “what’s happening?” to a steward. The steward repeats what the captain has said and does the famous Italian shrug meaning “it’s out of my hands buddy”.

Soon after the plane starts moving to everyone’s relief. I’ve been on the tarmac for longer periods but it’s such a short flight, 55 minutes, it seems silly to wait around.

I’m starving so buy some noodles as a snack but before I’m even halfway through the flight is starting it’s descent procedures. It’s a case of slurp and scoff.

Just when I think it’s all going to go smoothly, we hit turbulence over southern Sicily. I tell myself it’s updrafts coming from the hills but it’s a bit of a rollercoaster. In the end when we land I’m quite glad to get off the plane.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Vueling, at least they didn’t make us wait outside on tarmac like EasyJet. But being late and the captain saying he’d update us but then not doing so and not warning about turbulence was a bit disconcerting. More information for passengers was needed I feel.

Overall the services we’re fine and the staff friendly. The menu range and prices were reasonable, just don’t order too much food on a 55 min flight, you might not have time to eat it all.

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l leave Colours Budapest Hostel around 9.45am and head to Fearenc ter to catch the metro 3 to the last stop on that line, Kobi Kismet. From there bus 200E will transfer me to Ferenc Liszt International Airport. I had read online that I needed two tickets, one for the metro and one for the bus, but no one bothered checking tickets at airport, and the bus validation machine didn’t work anyway, so it was a bit of a waste of 350 HUF for the second ticket.

The metro takes around 20 minutes, and the bus another 20-30 minutes with several intervening stops along the way.  The check-in for EasyJet is at Terminal 2 B (T2 has A&B sides). I have to wait in the queue even though I checked in online as there is no separate bag drop line , ah well.

After checking in I go to the gates but it’s confusing as we’re directed back towards T2 A, a woman waves us on saying ‘all flights, all gates’. People look slightly confused but we go where we’re told and end up in the right place. T2 A must be where the majority of the flights leave from, with T2 B an extension for the cheap airline check in desks like easyJet and Whizz Air.

Going thru security, I think I’ve been clever by removing all liquids and gels whatsoever from my backpack but it’s directed towards the ‘check’ conveyor anyway. An official at the end grabs it and swabs the bag and I think ‘great, how to explain I’ve been in a hostel and whatever’s on my bag isn’t  mine.’

Then there’s some yelling back and forwards and pointing to the machine alongside. Whatever they stopped my bag for I’ll never know as it’s just handed back with a thank you. Machine malfunction?

I head through to the departure lounge to find gate A19, the very last gate. Eventually there’s an area where you need to use your boarding pass to get through some sluice doors for gates A12-A19. I hold mine up to the scanner but it beeps and says it’s too early to board. I fall back confused and then see a sign that says don’t enter this area until your flight is on the screen. Ok.

I wait until flight is on the screen and try again. Still no-go, I guess it means you have to wait until ‘gate’ is on the screen, even though the gate is marked on my boarding pass. Sure enough when gate 19 is on the screen. I can go through. It’s obviously for crowd control but I’m not sure why at this point. The other sign saying there are limited toilet facilities after the sluice gates is a clue.

After going through a corridor and downstairs we reach a makeshift type grey warehouse building with several different entrances. I spot signs that say Nice, Basel and at the end Venice. Wow, ok, it’s an EasyJet departure lounge tacked onto the airport where passengers are corralled like cattle with no facilities and no comfort seating. Interesting. I guess it’s a cheap flight but EasyJet is pushing the boundaries of being a competitive airline a little here, in Budapest at least.

We herd there for 10 minutes then the doors open and we go through into a covered outdoor corridor to line up to board. We wait for ages and we literally see the incoming passengers leaving the flight that’s just come in, which is a first.

Finally on board, I help a kid lift his baggage into the overhead locker and listen to friendly banter of an Italian steward. He tells me to put mine in the overhead locker as I’m in row 10 and sitting next to an emergency exit, which is always the short straw of seats. We take off 15 mins late but the captain assures we’ll arrive 10 minutes early

I’m starving hungry so get some food from the bistro menu, a wrap, smoothie and cookies which comes to €8.50. The cookies are really yummy and have a gooey centre, I restrain myself from buying another packet. They’re definitely the highlight of the flight.

The flight is only an hour but we fly with the seatbelt sign on for most of that due to ‘turbulence’ but I don’t feel any except a slight bumpiness towards the end. But the stewards are adamant about staying seated, especially one with an American accent who I note from her badge speaks English and French. To the point where passengers are dissuaded from going to toilet and hustled back to their seats (I assume to cross their legs).

As well as food and duty free items you can also buy tickets to Venice on board for 8€ one way and €16 return from the airport. I assume this is for the water taxi or bus but since I’m going to Trieste by train it’s a moot point but it’s an extra convenience offered which is nice.

As we come into land some Japanese tourists become animated and start taking photos out the window. The right hand side of the plane must be the best for views of Venice I note. I’m on the left hand side unfortunately. The guy next to me wakes up and sees we’re over land and snaps a photo of the view. I hope he doesn’t think the industrial park below is actually Venice.

We land in Venice 10 minutes early with no hassles and luggage collection is easy and since I’m in the Schengen zone there’s no passport check which makes it even quicker.

I haven’t been to Marco Polo airport before so I’ve assumed I can catch a train to Trieste from there. Wrong. There’s only a water taxi and bus. The trains go from Venice-Mestre so I have to catch a bus to there and then a train to Trieste. 

But there’s a well signposted and well manned public transport desk to the left when you exit so I buy an €8 bus ticket from there and when I get to the Mestre station, a €13 second class ticket to Trieste. In hindsight I should’ve asked if I could catch a bus to Trieste from Marco Polo but if I have to choose between 2 hours on a bus or a train, the train will always win out every time.

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