Above: Malaysia Airlines A330neo interior.
Trip Overview
This trip started with an intention to go to Europe for summer, to escape New Zealand’s wet and windy winter. We managed to get confirmed tickets on points from Taipei to Vienna and later on added budget airline flights around to various sunny spots, and then it kept growing.
We would use a staff ticket to get from Auckland to Taipei (and back from somewhere in Asia), so all was good.
Mistake
I’m holding a bunch of vouchers from AirAsia X, back from the pandemic which I’m slowly trying to use up. I had booked Xian to Kuala Lumpur in April and then stupidly Kuala Lumpur to Taipei for now.
This would mean that I would be in KL twice quite close together, which was a mistake. It wouldn’t make sense for me to go to Kuching twice so closely together either.
Redeeming my mistake
I had recently been to a cardiologist who suggested that I should commence taking statins for my consistently high triglycerides and my borderline cholesterol.
He did say I could do a CT Calcium Score test to see the level of obstruction in my arteries in case I wasn’t keen on jumping into statins.
The test is not covered by insurance in New Zealand and costs NZD545 to 660 whereas I could get it done at Pantai Hospital in KL for about NZD120 (MYR299).
This low price normally applies when part of an add-on to a bigger package but in their case it was a very straightforward pricing.
This seemed like the perfect redemption to my two KL stays being too close together. I’ve just made good the second stay by booking medical scan!
Stressful standby to Kuala Lumpur
I am flying to KL on standby on Malaysia Airlines, with relative confidence, knowing that there were 50 spare seats on the flight when someone checked for me a week ago.
I had considered flying a couple of days earlier and spending the extra days in Melaka but the safe load on tonight’s flight meant I cancelled that option.
Kim dropped me off at Auckland Airport after 2100 for the 0025 departure. I tried the kiosks check-in but was referred to the manager’s counter where I was told that standby seats tonight would be released at 1100 at which point I could try the kiosks again.
In the 90 mins of waiting, I saw a family of 6, spanning 3 generations get turned away due to documentation issues. I couldn’t imagine what it could have been as they looked Malaysian.
Just before 1100, I tried the kiosks but was redirected to the manager’s counter where the bombshell news was released:
- There were about 30 spare seats left but 26 staff listed (even though many had not turned up).
- Seats weren’t the issue but the aircraft is heavy tonight and only 6 staff can go.
Then came the nail-biting suspense of waiting:
- A family of 5 was top of the onload priority and went on their merry way.
- There was only one seat left and it had to be offered to another family of 5. They were given 2 minutes to choose one person from their party to go, or have the seat to be given to the next person in the priority list (which I was hoping would be me). They asked about buying Business Class staff tickets but the premium cabin was full too.
- After a very long 2 mins (which wasn’t, it was more than that), they came back and nominated a person in their group to be off-loaded. They had misunderstood completely, thinking that the needed to leave one behind when instead they needed to choose one to go.
- They were given another minute to think it through. Finally, they decided not to go.
- A third family with young kids couldn’t be split up, so it skipped to me quickly.
- But damn! A young Malaysian woman turned up to check on her standby. I expected her to have higher priority than me, naturally assuming that she was Malaysia Airlines staff.
- But apparently not, I was given my boarding pass at 1108 and given the OK to take my 12 kg of luggage into the cabin.
Happy to be going
I quickly headed airside where I ducked into the lounge quickly for a diet coke and a snack, staying for less than 10 mins. At the boarding gate, to my surprise, the Malaysian woman who turned up quite late had been given a seat. We were both unsure how they found some extra weight but I as pleased for her.
She introduced herself and I asked if she was Malaysia Airlines staff. To my surprise, she’s an Air New Zealand engineer following in her uncle’s footsteps. He had been a Malaysia Airlines engineer before working for Air New Zealand for 16 years until retirement.
We were both relieved to be flying tonight. We boarded the 6 month old Airbus A330-900 neo. With two spare seats in between me and my neighbour in the centre block of 4 seats, this is as good as it gets on a fairly full flight.
While I’m not an expert on the subject, I feel that the cargo loaded onto the plane was planned to correspond to the number of seats sold. The six (then seven later) staff that got on were probably simply to replace the family of 6 that were denied boarding.