Killing a day
Tonight, I have a flight to Sydney at 2130, brought forward a few months ago from 2335. I had cancelled the hotel room for tonight, which I was going to use as late check-out but with the earlier flight time, I would only use it for maybe 4h max.
To my surprise, I actually killed time quite well in the room and in bed till the 1200 checkout.
I killed 2h afterwards in the Nu Sentral mall by taking my time choosing my lunch venue and then walking off my yong taufu.
Taking the 1400 bus to the airport, I got there around 1500. I took my time getting airside and killed some time before going to the lounge airside around 1700 for my 3h stay, which is the maximum allowed.
Penny-pinching
This trip, I had felt the sting of the high EUR against the NZD. Last week, because I had to pay about an extra NZD100 to fly from Istanbul to KL via Bangkok rather than nonstop, I was determined to claw back some savings today:
- I had saved one night stay of about NZD30 in KL last week by connecting to Kuching.
- I also saved about NZD12 or NZD40 on airport transport, depending on whether I had taken the bus or the train.
- Today, I saved another night stay again of around NZD30.
- By taking the bus instead of the train yesterday and today, I had saved nearly NZD30 again.
I was happy that I had more than made things up.
Flying to Sydney
I left the lounge around 2000 and went through security to my departure gate. This time, there appeared to be no last-minute removal of water from passengers, something that is required for flights from Malaysia or Indonesia to Australia (due to extra security measures).
This ticket as purchased on vouchers obtained during the pandemic for flight cancellations. I had chosen a seat in what looked like the only spare row on the aircraft.
But to my surprise, a Russian family were seated with me. We had very nice chats and I learnt that they were on their way back from Ekaterinburg and Phuket to Melbourne.
Their flight from Phuket was delayed and they missed their connection to Melbourne and had been given two nights in a hotel by the airline but opted to put on my flight to Sydney instead (after which they had to find their own way back to Melbourne).
This flight was operated by a leased aircraft in Philippines Airline configuration. Normally, with most airlines, a leased aircraft means the product will be of a lesser quality but when you’re flying with lowest of the low, it can only be better.
- In economy class, instead of 9 seats across, the aircraft had 8 across.
- In the Quiet Zone, instead of 9 seats across in the forward zone, it was 7 seats across.
- And in the Premium Flatbed area, instead of an inclined flat bed, the seating was like business class on some leading airlines.
- The A330 even came with access to a lower deck crew rest module which probably wasn’t installed.
Like clockwork, we pushed back and departed on time bound for Sydney. Despite taking pill, I didn’t really sleep but just dozed. It was enough for time to not drag on.